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AMD launch their latest graphics card today … the high end HD7950. We have analysed several partner products already this morning and in this particular review we will focus on the custom Sapphire card, which is supplied in an overclocked state with proprietary two fan cooling solution.
While our other reviews today have detailed single card configurations, this review will focus on Crossfire performance. We will also look at three screen gaming, and whether it is worth spending extra money for two cards.
The Sapphire HD7950 Overclock Edition has received a core clock increase of 100mhz, taking the final board speed to 900mhz. Unlike XFX, Sapphire haven't touched the memory speeds however, maintaining the 5Gbps data rate.
This card isn't classed as one of the high grade ‘Toxic' or VaporX' Edition cards, so we are interested to see just how good the cooler is.
The Sapphire HD7950 Overclock Edition ships in a dramatic box featuring a perky, well endowed army lass, brandishing a machine gun.
Inside, the bundle is extensive. Sapphire have included several power and video converter cables, a disc with software, a Crossfire bridge and HDMI cable. This is the strongest bundle today.
Sapphire are using a custom cooling solution on this card, which is dual fan, and heatpipe based. It is built around a blue PCB.
The Sapphire HD7950 Overclock Edition is Crossfire capable in 2, 3 and 4 way configurations. The card has a dual BIOS switch. The second bios position raises the headroom in Catalyst Control Center for overclocking while setting a more aggressive fan profile.
Like all other HD7950's reviewed today, the Sapphire solution takes power from two six pin power connectors.
The card is a dual slot design with a full sized DVI and HDMI port, and two mini Display Port connectors. It is Eyefinity capable and can power up to 6 displays. The solution can simultaneously output multiple, independent audio streams from the HDMI and mini Displayport connectors at the rear of the card. The GPU can support 3GHz HDMI with frame packing support for Stereo 3D.
The Sapphire card uses a plate underneath which is positioned to transfer heat from various components on the board, including the memory. This is cooled directly from the two fans above.
Sapphire are using a quality cooler on this specific model, comprised of 5 thick heatpipes which are attached to several racks of aluminum fins on either side of the copper core block.
The Sapphire card uses HYNIX GDDR5 memory and a Chil CHL8228G controller.
Sapphire have overclocked the core from 800mhz to 900mhz, but haven't decided to increase memory speeds, holding at 1250mhz (5,000 mhz effective). The memory is connected via a 384 bit memory interface. The card is equipped with 32 ROPS and 1792 unifed shaders, which is down from 2048 on the higher cost HD7970.
On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.
To test today we are using our long standing Core i7 970 system, which is overclocked. We have a variety of hardware benchmarked on this system within the last couple of weeks which will make for an interesting market comparison.
We have included XFX HD7950 Black Edition single card results in some of these graphs, as a reference point for single card overclocked performance. The Sapphire card is clocked at the same core speed of 900mhz, however the memory is 1250mhz, not 1375mhz as on the XFX card. This wouldn't translate to a very noticeable difference when gaming, perhaps a single frame rate difference with some titles.
Due to time constraints we were only able to test the Sapphire HD7950 cards in Crossfire across three screens without comparison results from other products.
Test System:
Processor: Core i7 970 @ 4.6ghz
Graphics: Sapphire HD7950 Overclock Edition
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Memory: 6GB ADATA @ 2133mhz 9-10-9-32
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)
Comparison Cards:
HD7970
XFX HD7950 Black Edition
HD6990 (880 core)
HD6970
HD6950
HD6870
HD6790
HD6770
HD6670
GTX590 SLi
GTX590
GTX580 SLi
GTX580
GTX570
Monitors: Dell U2410 x 3 / LaCie 730
Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark
3DMark Vantage
3DMark 11
Fraps Professional
Steam Client
FurMark
Games:
Alien V Predator
Lost Planet 2
Far Cry 2
F1 2011
Metro 2033
Just Cause 2
Crysis Warhead
Metro 2033
Total War: Shogun 2
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.
Some game descriptions are edited from Wikipedia.
Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.
Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.
Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:
- Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
- Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
- Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
- Multicore CPU support
- Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
- Powerful C++ API
- Comprehensive performance profiling system
- Flexible XML-based data structures
We use the following settings: 1920×1080 resolution. Anti Aliasing off. Anisotrophy 4, Tessellation normal. Shaders High. Stereo 3D disabled. API: Direct X 11.
In Crossfire, the Sapphire HD7950's deliver stunning performance, averaging over 145 frames per second at these settings.
Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.
Great performance with two cards, scoring 45041 points, a couple of thousand points behind the reference clocked HD7970 in Crossfire.
3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.
After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.
If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.
Excellent results from the overclocked Sapphire HD7950's in Crossfire, scoring just under 13,000 points. This is around 1,000 points less than the Crossfired HD7970's.
HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evalute motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.
There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on Bluray. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content so will we.
This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.
Read our initial analysis over here
| Sapphire HD7950 OC ED | |
|
Dial
|
4 |
| Dial with static pattern | 5 |
| Gray Bars | 5 |
| Violin | 5 |
| Stadium 2:2 | 5 |
| Stadium 3:2 | 5 |
| Horizontal Text Scroll | 5 |
| Vertical Text Scroll | 5 |
| Transition to 3:2 Lock | 5 |
| Transition to 2:2 Lock | 0 |
|
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video
|
5 |
|
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video
|
5 |
|
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed
|
5 |
|
5:5 FPS Animation
|
5 |
|
6:4 12 FPS Animation
|
5 |
|
8:7 8 FPS Animation
|
5 |
|
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)
|
5 |
|
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)
|
5 |
|
Random Noise: Sailboat
|
5 |
|
Random Noise: Flower
|
5 |
|
Random Noise: Sunrise
|
5 |
|
Random Noise: Harbour Night
|
5 |
|
Scrolling Text
|
5 |
|
Roller Coaster
|
5 |
|
Ferris Wheel
|
5 |
|
Bridge Traffic
|
5 |
|
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text
|
5 |
|
Roller Coaster
|
5 |
|
Ferris Wheel
|
5 |
|
Bridge Traffic
|
5 |
|
Luminance Frequency Bands
|
5 |
|
Chrominance Frequency Bands
|
5 |
| Vanishing Text | 5 |
|
Resolution Enhancement
|
15 |
|
Theme Park
|
5 |
| Driftwood | 5 |
|
Ferris Wheel
|
5 |
|
Skin Tones
|
7 |
| Total | 196 |
A score of 196 points is class leading right now, the ideal solution for high definition media playback on a big screen.
F1 2011 is the newest Direct X 11 racing game from industry pioneers CodeMasters. The 2011 Formula One season is the 62nd FIA Formula One season. The original calendar consisted of twenty rounds, including the inaugural running of the Indian Grand Prix before the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix. Pirelli returns to the sport as tyre supplier for all teams, taking over from Bridgestone. Red Bull Racing are the reigning Constructor’s Champions. Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel is the defending Drivers’ Champion, one of five World Champions appearing on the grid.
No performance related concerns with F1 2011, even in single card configuration.
Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today.
To test the cards we used a 1080p resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on. We use this with most of our graphics card testing so cards are comparable throughout reviews.
A demanding Direct X 11 engine at these settings, however there are no performance related concerns, averaging over 170 fps.
Lost Planet 2 is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, taking place ten years after the events of the first game, on the same fictional planet. We don’t really enjoy playing this game, but the engine is a great Direct X 11 test of modern hardware.
Lost Planet 2 uses a very hard hitting Direct X 11 engine which can bring lesser hardware to a crawl. The Sapphire Crossfire system delivers the goods however, averaging just under 90 fps at these settings.
Far Cry 2 (commonly abbreviated as “FC2 or “fc2″) is an open-ended first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 21, 2008 in North America and on October 23, 2008 in Europe and Australia. It was made available on Steam on October 22, 2008. Crytek, the developers of the original game, were not involved in the development of Far Cry 2.
Ubisoft has marketed Far Cry 2 as the true sequel to Far Cry, though the sequel has very few noticeable similarities to the original game. Instead, it features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay that allows the player greater freedom to explore different African landscapes such as deserts, jungles, and savannas. The game takes place in a modern-day East African nation in a state of anarchy and civil war. The player takes control of a mercenary on a lengthy journey to locate and assassinate “The Jackal,” a notorious arms dealer.
Far Cry 2 is still a popular game and the open world environment can be taxing on even the latest hardware available today.
Settings: 1920×1200, D3D10, Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(8x), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Ultra High), Vegetation(Very High), Shading(Ultra High), Terrain(Ultra High), Geometry(Ultra High), Post FX(High), Texture(Ultra High), Shadow(Ultra High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Very High), Physics(Very High), RealTrees(Very High).
Good results, averaging over 180 frames per second at these settings.
Shogun 2 is set in 16th-century feudal Japan, in the aftermath of the Ōnin War. The country is fractured into rival clans led by local warlords, each fighting for control. The player takes on the role of one of these warlords, with the goal of dominating other factions and claiming his rule over Japan. The standard edition of the game will feature a total of eight factions (plus a ninth faction for the tutorial), each with a unique starting position and different political and military strengths.
We are using the built in benchmark which is available via the STEAM client for this game.
Results at 1080p show very strong Crossfire scaling performance, averaging around 125 frames per second. At 720p the system is CPU limited, but it still manages to generate over 200 frames per second.
Crysis Warhead, like the original Crysis, is set in 2020, when an ancient alien spacecraft is uncovered on the fictional Lingshan Islands, east of the Philippines. The single player campaign has the player assume the role of a member of Raptor Team, a squad of mostly American soldiers outfitted with cutting-edge technology. Specifically, they play the role of former British SAS operator Sergeant Michael Sykes, referred to in-game by his call sign, “Psycho”. Psycho was a supporting character in Crysis, in which players played one of his Raptor Team squad mates, Jake “Nomad” Dunn. Psycho's arsenal of futuristic weapons builds on those showcased in Crysis, with the introduction of Mini-SMGs which can be dual-wielded, a six-shot grenade launcher equipped with EMP grenades, and the destructive, short ranged Plasma Accumulator Cannon (PAX).
Anti Aliasing is set to x 4 and anisotropic filtering is x 8. We are using ‘gamer' quality setting. (Direct X 10).
A single card struggles to maintain smooth frame rates across three screens. Adding another helps to boost the average and minimum frame rates, creating a smooth gaming experience.
Just Cause 2 employs the Avalanche Engine 2.0, an updated version of the engine used in Just Cause. The game is set on the other side of the world from the original Just Cause, on the fictional island of Panau. The island is located in the south-east of Asia. Panau has varied terrain, from desert to alpine to rainforest. Rico Rodriguez returns as the protagonist, aiming to overthrow the evil dictator Pandak “Baby” Panay and confront his former mentor, Tom Sheldon.
We have set Antialiasing x 8 and Anisotropic filtering x 16. All other settings are ‘high'. Soft particles are enabled and motionblur is disabled.
Single card performance across three screens at these settings is barely playable, with some juddering in the open world environment. With two cards however the experience is much smoother with the frame rate never dropping below 38 fps.
Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter video game with survival horror elements, based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. The game is played from the perspective of Artyom, the player-character. The story takes place in post-apocalyptic Moscow, mostly inside the metro system, but occasionally missions bring the player above-ground.
We are testing with 2 x anti aliasing and 16 x Anisotropic filtering @ very high quality settings. Tessellation is enabled, physX is off, and soft particles are on.
A single card can handle this game at this resolution and settings, although in Crossfire the experience is noticeably smoother.
We have changed our method of measuring noise levels. We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. We are using a heatpipe based passive power supply and an Intel SSD to keep noise levels to a minimum. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests. Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.
Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
The Sapphire HD7950 is the quietest card on test today, emitting only 33.2 dBa of noise when gaming. This rises to 35.8 dBa when pushed hard in the synthetic Furmark test. This is with the higher fan profile. When set to the lower option, the noise decreases further peaking at 32.3 dBa when gaming.
The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.
Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.
The two fan profiles have around a 6-7c variable under load, as detailed in the graph above.
To test power consumption today we are using a Keithley Integra unit and we measure power consumption from the VGA card inputs, not the system wide drain. We measure results while gaming in Crysis Warhead and record the results.
In such an energy aware climate, AMD are making a big deal out of their new ‘ZeroCore Power’ technology. Many solutions today use power gating, clock gating and memory compression to reduce idle power requirements, but ZeroCore power technology can completely power down the core GPU while the rest of the system remains active.
Power consumption from a single card is good and in line with what we would expect from a HD7950, averaging 186 watts when gaming.
We are using the latest version of Sapphire’s TriXX tool for overclocking today. This has proven to work great with all AMD discrete graphics hardware.
Both of the cards we received today overclocked to over 1,200mhz with some core voltage increases. One card achieved 1,209mhz and the other 1,215mhz. Memory performance on both cards was limited to around 1530mhz. These are sizeable overclocks and superior to the other samples we received today.
The massive overclock from both cards reaps huge rewards in 3dMark 11, increasing the score from 12,976 points to 15,406 points. Well ahead of the HD7970 Crossfire configuration (at reference speeds). These cards have clearly massive headroom.
Before sharing our closing thoughts, we decided to test the system by slotting in another reference HD7950 and overclocking it to the same speeds as the Sapphire HD7950 cards.
After reinstalling the driver, Catalyst Control Center detected the extra card without a hitch.
All cards were configured to 900mhz core and 1250mhz via the GDDR5 memory.
Adding a third card increases the score from 12,976 points to 16,804 points, an increase of 3,828 points. By comparison, the two Sapphire HD7950's when manually overclocked to over 1,200mhz on the core score 15,406 points …. only 1398 points less than three at 900mhz.
The Sapphire HD7950 Overclock Edition is a striking card, both technically and aesthetically. Our review samples could be overclocked to 1,200mhz+ via the core. This translates to an almost 35 percent increase, a figure which proves difficult to dismiss, even for the most cynical of enthusiast user. Obviously we can't guarantee all cards in this series will hit the same levels, but it looks promising for a potential customer.
These specific cards may not be classed as VaporX or Toxic Editions, however Sapphire have not cut any corners in regards to cooling efficiency and build quality, as some might expect. The Sapphire ‘overclock' Editions are the quietest solutions on test today, very closely matched to the XFX Black Edition in regards to noise emissions and ultimate levels of performance.
So do you really need to buy two of these cards?
There is no doubt that a single HD7950 will offer more power than many people will need, especially when gaming with a single 24 or 30 inch screen. (Well, for the foreseeable future anyway). That said, when moving to a three screen configuration at 5760×1080 resolution or higher then two cards in Crossfire make a lot of sense.
Splitting the load across two GPU's can help enhance and smooth out the frame rate, especially with the latest, demanding Direct X 11 titles.
Sapphire have said that these cards should hit the retail channel around £360 this week, and at that price they offer great value for money. If you are able and willing to use TriXX software, then these cards can easily reach the same performance level as the flagship HD7970, costing around £100-£120 less.
We really do see no reason to opt for the more expensive HD7970 in Crossfire, unless you are chasing benchmarks or running Direct X 11 titles across three 30 inch screens. Otherwise we advise you to buy two HD7950′s and spend the left over money on other upgrades.
Pros:
- Great heatpipe based cooling system.
- Quiet.
- Tons of headroom on the core.
- Supplied overclocked ‘out of the box'.
- Works great with Trixx software.
Cons:
- XFX HD7950 Black Edition is a very close competitor.
Kitguru says: Another fantastic card from Sapphire. HIS should take note on how to release a launch day product.
You can buy various HD 7950's from Aria in the United Kingdom.
