Like the HD 7970 3GB, the HD 7950 3GB has
recently benefitted from healthy price cuts, driver updates and a legitimate
overclocked SK in the form of the HD 7950 3GB With Boost since its release. It
now has a far more tempting price of $353.9 for stock models, and goes
toe-to-toe with Nvidia’s TX 660 Ti 2GB.
A step down from the HD 7970 3GB, the 7950
3GB’s Tahiti Pro GPU benefits from the modular nature of the Southern Islands
architecture by sporting the same dual front-end engine with a pair of
tessellator-equipped geometry engines, and the same render back-end of 32 ROPs
and a 384-bit memory interface.
The only physical reduction has come from
the loss of four compute unit, reducing the SIMD-count by 16 and the overall
stream processor count by the 256, for a total of 1,792 of the latter. This
also reduces the texture unit count from 128 to 112.
AMD has scaled back the HD 7950 3GB’s clock
speed too. A standard card ships with a core frequency of 800MHz, while the HD
7950 3GB With Boost runs at the same base frequency, but is capable of boosting
to 925Hz as long as the card remains within its 180W maximum TDP. Meanwhile, a
memory frequency of 1,250MHz (5GHz effective) for both versions of the card
results in a peak memory bandwidth of 240GB/sec; far higher than that of even
the GTX 680 2GB thanks to Nvidia’s use of a 256-bit memory interface.
A Unigine score of 1,390 for a stock HD
7950 3GB is a little behind the similarly priced GTX 660 Ti 2GB, while a ‘With
Boost’ version manages a much more reasonable 1,513. Such cards are hard to
find, though, and the higher clock speeds typically demand a $48-$64 higher
price tag too. At 1,920 x 1,080, the HD 7950 3GB proved significantly slower
than the GTX 660 Ti 2GB across our benchmarks, with only its Crysis 2 minimum
frame rate of 48fps superior to the Nvidia card, although all its frame rates
are still playable. Even when the HD 7950 3GB is boosted to 925Mz, the stock
GeForce proves to be the quicker card in both Skyrim and BF3. At both 2,560 x
1,600 and 1,760 x 1,080, the HD 7950 3GB is marginally quicker, though, and it
also offers playable frame rates at the former resolution in all our test
games.
Conclusion
Similarly to the GTX 660 Ti 2GB, the HD
7950 3GB is stuck in the middle of two more competitive cards – the GTX 670 2GB
and the GTX 660 2GB. While we’d opt for the GTX 660 Ti 2GB over the 7950 3GB
thanks to its significant advantage at 1,920 x 1,080, and therefore greater future-proofing
at this resolution, you’ll get more bangs for your buck from the more expensive
GTX 670 or the cheaper GTX 660.
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Information
Decent high-res performance, but not
great value for money
Boost: Playable frame rates at 2,560 x
1,600
Twix: GTX 660 Ti 2GB quicker at 1,920 x
1,080; versions ‘With Boost’ are hard to find
Typical street price: $353.9
Manufacturer: www.amd.com
Scores
1920 speed: 13/20
2560 speed: 14/20
5760 speed: 2/5
Value: 41/55
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