Sapphire HD7790 2GB OC Review

The graphics card landscape is constantly changing as AMD and Nvidia battle for increased market share. While the hot, steamy action always happens in the high end, the majority of sales for both companies are in the less exciting budget sector. With this in mind, AMD released the 1GB HD7790 a month ago, a solution designed to slot in between the budget HD7770 and the more capable HD7850. Our biggest concern at HD7790 launch time was that many partners were dropping the prices of their HD7850 models. It was difficult to wholeheartedly recommend the HD7790 under such stiff competition from the faster AMD part. Today we look at the latest 2GB Sapphire HD7790 OC model - is it worth buying? A month has passed and it is worth taking a fresh look at pricing online today. Sapphire are selling their customised, overclocked 1GB HD7790 for £129.95 inc vat. This was the card we reviewed on launch day and as an overall solution it is worth recommending. It has a custom dual fan cooler, runs quiet, demands only a modicum of power and has bags of headroom for overclocking. The situation isn't that straightforward however. For only £10 more, Sapphire are selling a HD7850 which also has a custom dual fan cooler and emits very little noise under load. We have had hands on experience with this HD7850 and it is no slouch in regards to overclocking, with both samples hitting 1ghz easily enough. There is no question the HD7850 is a significantly more powerful solution. Is it worth the extra £10? Absolutely, without hesitation. The overclocked 2GB version of the HD7790 is quite different from the 1GB version we reviewed back in March. The more observant out there will already have noticed that the 1GB version adopted a dual fan cooling solution, this 2GB version has only one fan. Normally we would already be raising a red flag because two quality fans are always going to cool better than one across the same physical surface. Additionally, they can also spin slower, subsequently reducing noise emissions. Its not rocket science and it is why many AMD and NVIDIA partners release their overclocked cards with dual fan cooling solutions. This 2GB board features a new cooler design, which uses a dual heat pipe system with a single aerofoil section fan assembly with dust repelling bearings for maximum efficiency and reliability. Sapphire add "A unique and SAPPHIRE original feature is the integration into the cooling system of the metal backplate which cools the memory chips on the reverse side of the pcb and helps with pcb rigidity. A finned heatsink attached to the backplate passes through the pcb and extends into the airflow from the fan on the front side of the card, enabling the airflow to carry away the heat from the components on the back of the pcb and reducing memory temperatures to as low as 13 C." This HD7790 OC Edition also supports the Sapphire FleX feature which means you can use three digital displays to the DVI and HDMI outputs in Eyefinity without the need for an external active adapter. All four outputs can be used in AMD Eyefinity mode, but the fourth display must be a DisplayPort monitor or connected with an active adapter. The graph above from an AMD presentation highlights how the HD7790 sits at the top of the AMD ‘budget’ gamers card pile. For comparison purposes today we will be testing the Sapphire 2GB HD7790 OC against the Sapphire 1GB HD7790 OC, XFX HD7770, XFX HD7850 and Sparkle GTX650 Ti Dragon Series. I don’t know any gamer who is interested in the HD7750 and I would rather focus on the HD7850, especially as the deals on this solution are extremely competitive today. We updated the tests today with the latest AMD and NVIDIA drivers (Catalyst 13.5 and Forceware 314.22). As we mentioned before the HD7850 is the only card on test utilising a 256 bit memory interface. That said, thankfully AMD have equipped the new HD7790 with 896 shaders, up from a measly 640 on the HD7770.Sapphire's 2GB HD7790 OC is clocked at 1050mhz, up 50mhz from the reference card, but 25mhz slower than the Sapphire 1GB HD7790 OC model. This seems a rather bizarre move, Sapphire should have kept both cards at the same 1,075mhz clock speeds, unless the 2GB version is running close to the core limit. We find this highly unlikely however as the 1GB model had huge overclocking potential in our last review. We will look at this in more detail when we get to the overclocking section, later in the review. Yes, you guessed it, another well endowed 3D rendered army lass, locked and loaded and ready to kick ass. Sapphire have highlighted the 2GB GDDR5 memory and Overclocked configuration. The software bundle is very good. Sapphire include a power and video converter cable and a Crossfire adapter. They bundle a quality HDMI cable, software disc and installation guide. The Sapphire 2GB HD7790 is an attractive looking card and the metal backplate certainly improves the appearance, as well as offering cooling benefits. It is a two slot cooling system and the large fan is centrally positioned. The HD7790 is Crossfire capable in a two way configuration only. It demands power from a single 6 pin PCI cable. The card has two DVI connectors, an HDMI connector and a DisplayPort connector. If you have skipped the first page, it is a good time to head back as we posted a split view overhead diagram of the cooling system. The cooler is formed around a copper base, with two thick heatpipes which run into racks of aluminium fins on either side of the cooler. 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. This review focuses on how the HD7790 compares against the higher clocked 1GB Sapphire model and a handful of other cards which are relevant in the budget to mid range sector. Test System Processor: Core i7 3960 X Extreme Edition @ 4.4ghz Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7790 2GB OC (Catalyst 13.5 Beta) Cooler: Antec 920 H20 Memory: 16GB G.Skill 2,400mhz @ 10-11-10-30 Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme Power Supply: Seasonic 1KW Platinum Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive Chassis: Lian Li PC-A77FR Aluminium Red Full Tower Case Boot Drive: Patriot WildFire 120GB Secondary Drive: 1TB Samsung Monitors: Dell U3011 and Dell U2410 x 3. Comparison cards: XFX HD7770 Core Edition (Catalyst 13.5 beta driver) Sapphire HD7790 OC Edition (Catalyst 13.5 beta driver) XFX HD7850 Core Edition (Catalyst 13.5 beta driver) XFX HD7870 Core Edition (Catalyst 13.5 beta driver) Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X Edition (Catalyst 13.5 beta driver) Zotac GTX650 (Forceware 314.22 driver) Gainward GTX660 (Forceware 314.22 driver) Gainward GTX660 ti (Forceware 314.22 driver) Zotac GTX670 (Forceware 314.22 driver) Software: Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit Unigine Heaven Benchmark Unigine Valley Benchmark 3DMark Vantage 3DMark 11 3DMark Fraps Professional Steam Client FurMark Games: Alien V Predator Sleeping Dogs Total War: Shogun 2 Dirt Showdown Max Payne 3 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. Performance is only very slightly behind the 1GB OC version of the card, due to the 25mhz core clock deficit. Valley Benchmark is a new GPU stress-testing tool from the developers of the very popular and highly acclaimed Heaven Benchmark. The forest-covered valley surrounded by vast mountains amazes with its scale from a bird’s-eye view and is extremely detailed down to every leaf and flower petal. This non-synthetic benchmark powered by the state-of-the art UNIGINE Engine showcases a comprehensive set of cutting-edge graphics technologies with a dynamic environment and fully interactive modes available to the end user. A demanding test at these settings. The GTX660 upwards provides frame rates consistently above the sweet spot of 25 frames per second. The Sapphire HD7790 OC 2GB model is a little slower than the 1GB version, due to the 25mhz clock difference. 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. A strong showing from the Sapphire hardware, scoring just under 20,000 points. 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. Performance scales in behind the 1GB version of the card, and the HD7850. 3DMark is an essential tool used by millions of gamers, hundreds of hardware review sites and many of the world’s leading manufacturers to measure PC gaming performance.Futuremark say “Use it to test your PC’s limits and measure the impact of overclocking and tweaking your system. Search our massive results database and see how your PC compares or just admire the graphics and wonder why all PC games don’t look this good.To get more out of your PC, put 3DMark in your PC.” The Sapphire H7790 OC 2GB rests between the HD7770 and the HD7850, as expected. The HD7770 limited shader prowess hurts the overall score. 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 1920×1080 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. The game is playable at these settings, never dropping below 30 frames per second. 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 run the DX11 Graphics High 1080p benchmark, available for this game in STEAM. You can therefore directly compare against your own system. Frame rates are rounded up or down to the nearest digit. Real in game performance varies substantially across the environments and levels, but we include these results so you can compare directly with your own system. If the game delivers good frame rates with the 1080p benchmark, you can sure it will run well with high image quality settings in game too. This is a demanding Direct X 11 engine, although it has been very well optimised to run on a variety of AMD hardware. The Sapphire HD7790 OC 2GB performs well, averaging well over 40 frames per second. Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007. We configured the game at the ULTRA preset with a 1080p resolution and 8x MSAA. Good performance, maintaining a frame rate well above 30 at all times. Sleeping Dogs started development as an original title, but was announced in 2009 as True Crime: Hong Kong, the third installment and a reboot of the True Crime series. As a result of the game’s high development budget and delays, it was canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011. Six months later, it was announced that Square Enix had picked up the publishing rights to the game, but the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs in 2012 since Square Enix did not purchase the True Crime name rights. We are using the highest possible image quality settings at 1080p, including the high resolution texture pack. One of the most demanding Direct X 11 engines at the highest image quality settings, even quite some time after release. The HD7790's struggle a little to maintain a >25fps at all times, but the game is mostly smooth throughout our test. Max Payne 3 is a third-person shooter in which the player assumes the role of its titular character, Max Payne. Max Payne 3 features a similar over-the-shoulder camera as its predecessors, with the addition of a cover mechanic, while also retaining much of the same run-and-gun style of gameplay. Max Payne 3 also marks the return of bullet-time in action sequences, for which the franchise is notable. In bullet-time it is possible to see every bullet strike an enemy in detail. New to the series is a “Last Stand” mechanic, which gives the player a grace period after losing all health during which time the player may kill the enemy that wounded them in order to continue playing, however this mechanic is only usable if the player has one or more bottles of painkillers in their possession. These settings exceed the onboard memory of the 1GB cards, and the game engine highlights the problem in red at the bottom. The performance with this engine is interesting. The extra 1GB of GDDR5 memory seems to help when paging the data as we noticed a couple of 'judders' on the 1GB version of the card. The 2GB was definitely smoother, as indicated by the higher minimum frame rate results. The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 20c – 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 proprietary single fan cooler delivers good results, although it is outperformed by the dual fan cooler on the Sapphire HD7790 OC 1GB (-8c variable). We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with almost 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 single fan on the Sapphire HD7790 2GB OC is configured with a very non aggressive profile. When gaming, we documented rotational speeds around 1,300 rpm. Under Furmark load, the fan increased a little higher to around 1,500 rpm. When idle, the fan spins at around 900-1,000 rpm. To overclock today we are using the latest version of Sapphire's TriXX tool - V4.6.2. The Sapphire HD7790 2GB OC model showed a very healthy core clock increase, from 1050mhz to 1,253mhz. This translates into almost a 20% increase which is remarkable. It does raise a point I made earlier in the review however - why is the 2GB OC model of this card clocked at 1,050mhz and not the same 1,075mhz speed of the 1GB OC card? It makes little sense to me. The massive 20% core overclock increases the final score from 3,670 points to 4,078 points, around 150 points behind the HD7850. The Sapphire HD7790 2GB OC is a very capable, cost effective graphics card with a massive amount of overclocking headroom. Our tests highlighted today that the core can be increased by almost 20 percent before any unwanted artifacting will occur. This pushes the overall performance to within striking distance of a reference clocked HD7850. Sapphire have invested a lot of time and effort into creating an extremely high grade cooling system. This 2GB board features a new cooler design incorporating a dual heat pipe system and a single aerofoil section fan assembly with dust repelling bearings. The metal backplate cools the memory chips on the reverse side of the PCB and a finned heatsink attached to the backplate passes through the PCB and extends into the airflow from the fan on the front side of the card, enabling the airflow to carry away the heat from the components on the back. Sapphire are clearly very confident in the performance of this cooling system, as the single fan profile is optimised specifically for acoustics performance. When idle, it spins at just under 1,000 rpm and when gaming the rotational speed only increases to around 1,300rpm. It produces very low noise emissions, right at the top of its specific class. The overclocked 1GB version of Sapphire's HD7790 is a little louder, but it does run cooler as the dual fan system drops temperatures by around 8c under the same load conditions. The adoption of 2GB of GDDR5 may help in specific circumstances as seen when we tasked Max Payne 3 with a 1200MB+ memory overhead. With a 25mhz core clock deficit, the 2GB OC card is generally a little slower than the 1GB OC version, however in Max Payne 3 we recorded a slightly improved minimum frame rate during some sections of gameplay. The biggest concern for the Sapphire HD7790 2GB OC is the pricing. The 1GB OC version of the card retails for £129.95 inc vat. While it is not listed at time of publication, Sapphire told us that the price point of the 2GB OC version should only be £5 extra, therefore around the £135 inc vat mark. So far, so good, but Sapphire are selling the custom dual fan version of their HD7850 for only £139.99 inc vat. Even when factoring in the huge overclocking headroom available on the Sapphire HD7790 OC cards - which can be increased to 1,250mhz; the HD7850 is still faster - due to the 256bit memory interface and enhanced shader power. There are clearly some pricing concerns, either the HD7850 is underpriced, or the HD7790 is too expensive. As it stands today, the products are really just too closely priced to wholeheartedly recommend the HD7790. Right now, we would get the Sapphire HD7850 with dual fan cooler, it is just too good a deal to miss. If you are interested in picking up the Sapphire HD7790 OC cards then keep watching for the prices to drop, we imagine someone will realise that it needs to change. Pros: fantastic cooling system. whisper quiet. solid overall performance. massive overclocking headroom. Cons: why 1,050mhz and not 1,075mhz to match 1GB OC version, or even higher? two fans would improve cooling performance even more. Sapphire dual fan HD7850 is only £5 extra. Kitguru says: A great card, but the £5 pricing difference between this and the Sapphire HD7850 makes no sense to us.