Anticipating today’s launch, XFX shot over its R7950 Black Edition, which deviates from AMD’s reference design on a number of different levels.
Right off the bat, we noticed that this wasn’t based on a reference PCB. Also, XFX’s cooler is dramatically different. Instead of the centrifugal fan exhausting out a single-slot grate, the card employs a feature XFX calls Double Dissipation. Two axial fans blow over aluminum fins, directing some exhaust out the back, but not all.
XFX also doesn’t rely on AMD’s reference clock rates. The R7950 Black Edition ships with a 900 MHz core and 1375 MHz memory—a notable step up from the default 800/1250 MHz.

Hoping that XFX’s aftermarket cooling and unique layout would make for a good overclocking foundation, we tweaked our sample up as high as it’d go using AMD’s Overdrive interface, eventually settling on a stable 1025 MHz core and 1425 MHz memory frequency.
As you can see in the following few charts, the impact of the speed-up is generally sufficient for catching a stock Radeon HD 7970.






Of course, curious about the efficacy of XFX’s modifications, we reset everything to default and took some power, thermal, and noise measurements.


XFX’s box says that the R7950’s dual fans help reduce noise and operating temperatures. Just as interesting, though, is the fact that idle power consumption drops by about 7 W compared to the stock Radeon HD 7950, and long-idle power use falls by 8 W.


An early version of the R7950’s video BIOS employed aggressive fan speed settings that had a major impact on thermals, dropping load temperatures from 75 degrees Celsius down to 68. However, the production firmware relaxes that profile, resulting in less noise, but giving up all of the benefit in our temperature measurement. As a result, we see the same 75 degrees during a 10-loop run of the Metro 2033 benchmark.
At idle, XFX’s R7950 Black Edition does shave off two degrees compared to AMD’s reference design.


And it does so without making any additional noise. At idle, our XFX sample achieves the same whisper-quiet 37.3 dB(A) reading from one meter away as our AMD Radeon HD 7950 cards.
Under load, the production fan profile turns what was originally a very loud pair of axial fans into a solution that makes less noise than AMD’s own centrifugal implementation. The company does say that enthusiasts who really want the more aggressive firmware will be able to get it from XFX’s site.
- AMD's Tahiti Pro Goes Heads-Up With Nvidia's GF110
- Tessellation Performance And Audio Output
- Overclocking With XFX’s R7950 Black Edition
- Test Setup And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: 3DMark 11
- Benchmark Results: Battlefield 3
- Benchmark Results: Crysis 2
- Benchmark Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Benchmark Results: DiRT 3
- Benchmark Results: World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm
- Benchmark Results: Metro 2033
- Benchmark Results: Sandra 2012
- Benchmark Results: MediaEspresso 6.5 And LuxMark
- Benchmark Results: vReveal
- 2D Performance Via GDI And GDI+
- CrossFire And SLI: 3DMark 11
- CrossFire And SLI: Battlefield 3 And Crysis 2
- CrossFire And SLI: DiRT 3, Metro 2033, And LuxMark
- Power, Temperatures, And Noise
- CrossFire And SLI: Power Consumption And Noise
- One Year Later: A Great GeForce GTX 580 Alternative

Every rumor and leak I've seen so far on gk104 pricing seems to indicate otherwise...
http://www.guru3d.com/news/nvidia-gk104-kepler-gpu-priced-at-299-230-/
According to Nvidia's AIB partners the initial price set for the first gk104 based graphics card is $300. Of course this can go up or down based on the competition. Unfortunately, I have the feeling it'll be going up.
Congratulations. The 7950 narrowly beats a year old card and costs the exact same. No thanks, I'll wait on Kepler and then decide what to get once AMD puts down the pipe and has to get real on their prices. And I'm a proud owner of a 4870.
It does beat it, i can say it does.. My SC GTX580 was pulling around the same bandwidth as one they have here, i overclocked it and was getting almost 200GB's of bandwidth and was quite surprised i was able to push it and keep it like that with no trouble at all in any game i play and pretty much passed each stress test without any artifacts that i ran for hours. Headroom to OC differentiates from card to card, and nothing is guaranteed. But of course with 7950 im impressed it does very well even though the spec's on it look like it can run a marathon around the 580 with no trouble at all, but it does keep up with it and battle it out. I hope nvidia see's this as a threat and drops there price on the 580 so i can pick up another for around $400 =D Would make me very happy.
7950's power consumption in single and cfx mode are quite impressive.
i'll compare them to kepler when they come out and get tested.. right now, gcn high end looks much better than fermi high end (gpu compute, power efficiency etc).
amd's driver support seems inconsistent as usual... hopefully more mature drivers will bring out even more performance out of the gcn cards.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/his-radeon-hd-7950-review/25
As always good job Chris.
The editors at Guru3D perform their noise tests differently than most other sites. The cards are placed in a closed case and measurements are taken from a few feet back. These editors are also either partially deaf, or they just don't give a damn about excessive system noise. Honestly, I don't think they've ever knocked a card for being too loud, even the HD6990.
You are aware that the 7950 is not supposed to directly compete with the 580, right? The 7970 is supposed to beat the 580 and the 7950 is supposed to beat the 570. Just like how the 6970 is supposed to compete with the 580 and the 6950 is supposed to compete with the 570. The shear fact that the non flagship GPU beats the flagship GPU of your competitor is pretty awesome.
AMD has had plenty of time to play catch-up. It's not "pretty awesome" they leap-frogged Nvidia once again. It's a calculated move on AMD's part, for certain. A good one, but "pretty awesome" is very far from "standard dual-monopoly leap-frogging that's gone on since both companies started". Relax.
That said, I DO celebrate and find it ironic that AMDs 7950 is as flag-shippy whoop-ass as Nvidia's 7950 was in its day! I'm looking at my dead beast here right now. Miss you, 7950GT. I... I loved you. I can say that, now.
It is not pretty awesome that your next gen part that you priced slightly below the competitors flagship last gen part outperforms it in some tests. That is to be excepted. The 7950 is not against a gtx 570, its against a gtx670 which is not out yet, and will probably be replaced around the same price point as a 570 with a large performance increase over it, making buying a $450 7950 retarded; as such the 7950 will then get dropped to where the 6950 is now to be competitive.
Anyone who buys a 7950 before AMD at $450 is a chump. 30%+ price drop as soon as Nvidia releases its next gen.