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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.
The Sapphire HD7950 Vapor X slots in right behind the XFX HD7770 Black Edition cards in CrossfireX, averaging 76.4 frames per second.
That is fantastic, although ive a feeling £300 might not be possible with the card. I hope im wrong as I think if they get the price right this could sell well for them.
They make the best video cards on the planet. Imagine what they could do if they worked with Nvidia.
Whatever happened to XFX by the way? they disappeared off the face of the planet.
I still think £300+ is too much for most people, but they are pushing the reference designs pretty much as far as they can do.
Excellent review as always Zardon. Quick question – will people actually be able to buy this one? the toxic 6GB has never appeared in the UK as far as I know.
Strange they didnt opt for the 6GB of memory again. or did they realise that its a waste of money basically?
thats very tasty but they need to make a 7850 like this for the mass audience and try to keep it around £200 🙂
Will they actually be selling this one though? the 6GB Toxic was never on sale anywhere I could find it.
Excellent, im more an nvidia guy, but Sapphire are pulling out all the stops lately with their designs.
Are you sure about the bios settings? At http://www.sapphiretech.com it says:
“On its standard settings, the SAPPHIRE HD 7950 Vapor-X Edition engine clock runs at 850 MHz with 3GB of the latest DDR5 memory clocked at 5000 MHz effective. When the Dual BIOS button is operated, the base clocks are the same but the PowerTune Dynamic Boost is enabled allowing the clocks to rise to 950 MHz or more on the engine. The fan profile and PowerTune limit is also changed to performance settings. In addition, users will be able to individually tune the card with SAPPHIRE TriXX, the company’s free to download software tool that allows key parameters to be adjusted for maximum performance.”
Yes, thats right 🙂 we tested in performance mode with core boost to 950mhz
Shouldn’t it than say 850mhz for bios 1 and 850mhz-950mhz for bios 2 in the chart on page one if the base clocks are the same? Also the GPU-Z Screenshots on page 2 confuses me because it looks more like bios 1 = 850mhz-950mhz and bios 2 = 950mhz?
In case the 850mhz-950mhz is correct for the tested bios it would have been interesting to see if the card can handle the 950mhz constantly ingame or frequently falls back to 850mhz?
I’m so curious because I don’t like this whole boost thing would have been much better to not imitate nvidia in that field an leave it fixed at 850mhz for bios 1 and fixed at 950mhz for bios 2.
Apart from that little uncertainty you have made a great Review an I wold like to thank you for that. 🙂 The only thing I mist was a small audio file to actually hear the characteristic of the fans at idle and load.
The first bios setting – the core runs at 850mhz. The secondary ‘boost’ bios has the core running at 950mhz. It was running at 950mhz constantly according to my analysis when under gaming or synthetic load. We only tested at the faster setting, as I dont imagine any enthusiast would pay a premium for this card to run it at the slower speed. seems almost pointless. Still it is a good fallback option in some instances.
The table on the first page, basically just shows the full gamut of core clock speeds. but 950mhz was used throughout testing.
Glad you liked the review.
Thank you for the fast answer at this late hour 🙂
Since the 660 Ti didn’t convince me with it’s cut on the memory bandwidth which is already the weakness of the 670 and 680 I will go with this one as soon as it is available providing that the price isn’t ruining the good package. The other Sapphire HD7950 with 950mhz and no boost is most likely louder or hotter I guess.