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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.
Awesome, if its £360 thats £130 less than their 7970….
1,200mhz? thats insane. worth the money for that alone!
Looks like this is the new ‘to buy’ card, like the previous 6950 which could be unlocked.
Why are all the companies supplying them in such low states of clock? 1000mhz seems easy and would get them sales.
ARIA Dont sell this one. just the 800mhz version. Its 360. I think this will be closer to 400. Are they any different, better batch or hand picked maybe?
XFX cooler looks better, this is very plastickly. I would wait on the better Toxic edition which will probably be out in a month, with even higher clocks and premium capacitors etc.