Test Setup And Benchmarks
I don't think we've ever been given so little time to review a graphics card. So, we're focusing on testing where it matters most: the popular 1920x1080 desktop resolution. If you have three screens, expect to spend more on a graphics card better-suited to 5760x1080.
We're including Nvidia's GeForce GTX 650 Ti as the 7790's most obvious competition. We also have AMD's Radeon HD 7770 and 7850 1 GB, representing the cards surrounding 7790 in AMD's line-up. In addition, the older Radeon HD 6870 and GeForce GTX 560 should show us how the new card stands up to older technology. And as always, factory-overclocked settings are dialed back to the reference specification.
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| Test System | |
|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i7-3960X (Sandy Bridge-E), 3.3 GHz/3.9 GHz Max Turbo, Six Cores, LGA 2011, 15 MB Shared L3 Cache, Hyper-Threading enabled. |
| Motherboard | ASRock X79 Extreme9 (LGA 2011) Chipset: Intel X79 Express |
| Networking | On-Board Gigabit LAN controller |
| Memory | Corsair Vengeance LP PC3-16000, 4 x 4 GB, 1600 MT/s, CL 8-8-8-24-2T |
| Graphics | GeForce GTX 650 2 GB GDDR5GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1 GB GDDR5GeForce GTX 560 1 GB GDDR5Radeon HD 7770 1 GB GDDR5Radeon HD 7850 1 GB GDDR5Radeon HD 6870 1 GB GDDR5Radeon HD 7790 1 GB GDDR5 |
| Hard Drive | Samsung 470-series 256 GB (SSD) |
| Power | ePower EP-1200E10-T2 1200 W ATX12V, EPS12V |
| Software and Drivers | |
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows 8 |
| DirectX | DirectX 11.1 |
| Graphics Drivers | AMD Catalyst 13.3 Beta 2Nvidia GeForce 314.21 BetaRadeon HD 7790 Catalyst Beta Driver |
| Benchmarks | |
| Borderlands 2 | v.1.0.28.697606, Custom Benchmark, 60-second Fraps run |
| Crysis 3 | v.1.0.0.1, Custom Benchmark, 60-second Fraps run |
| F1 2012 | v.1.3.3.0, Included Benchmark, 60-second Fraps run |
| Far Cry 3 | v.1.0.0.1, Custom Benchmark, 50-second Fraps run |
| Tomb Raider | v.1.0.722.3, Custom Benchmark, 45-second Fraps run |