Gigabyte Radeon HD 7950 WindForce 3 Graphics Card Review

mosu,

Are you an AMD shill or something?

"The only way to be truly objective is comparing apples to apples.not launching dates or anything
else than unbiased testing suites."

1) The article clearly showed that HD7950 is better than GTX580;
2) The article even highlighted that HD7950 by Gigabyte is a better buy than a reference HD7970 due to factory pre-overclock, additional overclocking with very noise levels courtesy of 3x Windforce heatsink, and due to lower price and power consumption.

Other results, such as GTX580 SLI, were included with HD6970 CF, HD6990, GTX590, etc. Using your retarded logic, the review should remove all Crossfire and SLI configurations too?

Also, everyone understands that it's "fair" to compare cards that are currently for sale. But HD7950 should easily beat GTX580 considering the latter is 15 months old. In technology, we expect faster performance at the same price or much lower price with similar performance. That's the point Steve was trying to make.

The only true way to gauge how good HD7950 really is to see what the competitor has. Technically, yes HD7950 is better than GTX580, but those cards are really meant to be competitors to Kepler. If HD7950 is faster than GTX670 Ti, then yes it's a great card. But if 2 months later NV launches a $299 GTX670Ti that beats an HD7950, then HD7950 @ $490 will look like the worst buy in a LONG time.

Right now, this review shows us where the new 7900 series stands and provides us an idea whether or not it's worth it to buy a 7900 series with an aftermarket cooler such as what Gigabyte has given us. But don't pretend to be oblivious to the fact that Kepler IS coming.

Your logic is so flawed in fact, it's like comparing the new Lamborghini Aventador and claiming it destroys the Ferrari 599, totally oblivious that the fact that the new Ferrari 620 GT's launch is imminent.

Only a fanboy, or a person who can drop $500 on GPUs every 6 months would jump at the HD7950 without seeing what NV has to offer. But hey, if 7900 series drops $100-200 in the next 2 months, don't come crying here.

i've got one of those bad *** HD 7950 from Sapphire.. although mine is the reference design, not the OC version. the thing is a beast. i am doing 1100mhz core and 1450 mem all with just 1.15 core voltage. i don't know how Sapphire did it... but all there cards voltages are lower than the AMD reference spec, even their OC version is too. i'm scared to push more because the skimpy reference cooler that's on right now might not be enough. i am really eager and can't wait to get the Zalman's new 79XX VF3000 cooler to come out. i wanna see how much more this GPU can push. as it stands at the moment, 1100/1450, that's 37% more performance than the stock card. can't beat that. the VRM module also seem to run surprisingly cooler than i thought. VRM is one those things people tend to overlook, but can easily fry your card if you let it cook up to 120c. luckily those HD 7950's usually hover around 85c~90c at the most, plenty cool for a VRM module, consider there's no heatsink what so ever covering them on the reference design.

+1

now they should make an HD 7970 WindForce 3.. but with a black PCB, this one's ugly

Great review.
You covered cards from low end 6870 to high end hd6990,gtx590, you also throwed in the crossfired 6970 scores to. I really like that and to me that not a negative at all.I will say again good job on the review it really shows everyone at a glance how the card preforms and show how it performs against other that are available for purchase now and that what a review should do.

My only gripe is with AMD about pricing of there whole 7000 line of cards is high. I have know idea f the markup and the cost to produce the cards but it a lot higher than normal at least for AMD. Maybe there recouping on the cost for the die shrink or there trying to get a little extra while they can before nvidia new release. But i think if it cheaper then a lot more people would jump on the bandwagon and by the card now instead of waiting for the nvidia release.

I think a cost of $400 US reference and $450 US non reference would have been better for the 7950 series card would have been more in line and a little easier for people to swallow.

I also think depending on what Kepler is going to do you will see price drop to that level.

To me if that the case why not do it now and save the pissed off reaction that your going to get when you do it from your customer that bought it at the higher price. Because if you do lower it then that means their was markup and you as a company come off as greedy bunch especailly when there is the current economic hardship in the world.

Just my opinion on it, I have always said that companies can always be fair and make a profit on there products without gouging on pricing and also fostering loyalty to the company that has treated them fair with there pricing.

Is there a reason the PCB screen-printed number is sticker-ed over. This is mentioned as a non-reference PCB, but in order to confirm it for Watercooled blocks I need to see the PCB serial number.

Great zoom on the PCB picture but there's a product sticker covering the PCB number.

The fact that the Gigabyte board deviates substantially from the reference PCB should be abundantly clear. 6+1 instead of 4+1 phase power (which shouldn't affect waterblock compatibility) , totally revised capacitor layout between the voltage regulation and the front of the card (which will), and the deletion of a number of securing points would be the obvious giveaways.


BTW: If you're going to be watercooling, why bother paying for a card that has increased cost attached because of an air cooler you won't be using? It's not as if reference HD 7950's aren't overclockable.

Original HD 7950 reference shot can be found here

thanks mate, looks nice, but i think i'll go with the XFX 7979 OC Double Dissipation.

I would like to see how well these cards perform generating bitcoins.

I was right when I've said : Nvidia promises to ship next-gen Kepler GPU this year (not!) see comments! back in august 2011
and sadly I am ranted again when obvious is not so clear for Nvidia supporters.Please show me that I'm wrong with arguments, in the spirit of fairness.

In my first post I only pointed what I'm thinking to be wrong in a test comparison otherwise relevant and informative.Instead I'm called politicianist and fanatic, I assume because I see commercialism where others don't.My point being that if you're right, it doesn't matter how many think otherwise because, well, you're right at the end of the day.So please, let wait together for Nvidia's new card to answer AMD and the rest of the world.And yes, I expected this forum to be more democratic, respect for other people's opinion and not a Miss Congeniality contest.

What if you are wrong? Which you most certainly are and others have pointed that out. I think you will find the back lash came from how politically incorrect you worded your opinion.

Inferring bias/corruption against the sites staff was out of line...Saying that a review should be titled ""Second Best from AMD Smashes Nvidia Top Of The Line " probably tipped off the forum members to your lucidity...or lack thereof.

It's "politicist"...and no I don't see you as a politicist...fanatic yes, politicist no.
Oh, sorry, you're just like Intel now!...no ideas, only steals
go AMD!
But wait, no native SATA3 or PCIEx 3.0 on Intel so I should go AMD!
I'm sorry to admit but I won't buy an Intel inside phone, nor Nokia but I would gladly buy an AMD inside phone

Leaving aside your lack of Geography skills. I probably have more posts recommending AMD graphics than you have posts in their entirety
[1] , [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]...etc, etc...

Probably safer to say I'm an Intel fan, since I seldom if ever recommend AMD CPU's and chipsets. I'd also note- as LNCPapa touched on, that I'm a devotee of performance, and performance-per-$ to a smaller extent. I don't blindly follow a company nor endorse that company wholesale -as seems your mandate. Every product stands or falls on it's own merit.
As for the company ethos and ideology, I appreciate the determination to do well far above a headless-chicken act and indecisiveness

Put together the post while Steve was posting, and between prep shifts. Read the post with his comment in mind

This review makes my point.link:http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/gtx580_vs_hd7970_the_ultimate_face_off,1.html

"AMD ended 2011 on a high note..."
HAH! Good one Techspot. AMD just failed with there Bulldozer processors and actually lost 177 million dollars at the end of 2011....

So we were talking about the GPU division as we pretty much explained in that same sentence.