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Can a Double D beat an FTW? 7970 once again challenges the 670

Subject: General Tech | November 2, 2012 - 06:13 PM |
Tagged: xfx, HD7950, double d, 7970 ghz edition

Not only is XFX's latest HD7970 a Gigahertz Edition it also bears their proprietary Double Dissipation cooler.  This not only provides efficient cooling but also gives the card top a very distinct look to go with the black PCB on the back.  The card runs at the stock speeds of a 7970 GHz edition, though with the help of AMD Overdrive [H]ard|OCP hit 1210MHz on the GPU and 6.86GHz on the memory.  In the end though that was not enough to win a recommendation from [H] as there is not much difference in the performance between this card and a customized GTX670 ... which happens to average $30 less in price.

H_DD_7970.jpg

"With continuous AMD price drops the XFX Double D HD 7970 GHz Edition video card has dropped into line with many of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 670 cards. Find out if the XFX's Double Dissipation technology will excel this video cards overclocking potential when we put it head to head with GeForce GTX 680 and overclocked GeForce GTX 670."

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Graphics Cards

Source: [H]ard|OCP

Podcast #214 - 2 GTX 670 Cards, AMD's HD 7950 with Boost, Microsoft Surface rumors and more!

Subject: General Tech | August 16, 2012 - 06:39 PM |
Tagged: powertune, podcast, Intel, HD7950, gtx 670, amd, 7950, 670, 660ti

PC Perspective Podcast #214 - 08/16/2012

Join us this week as we talk about two GTX 670 Cards, AMD's HD 7950 with Boost, Microsoft Surface rumors and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

  • iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
  • RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
  • MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath and Allyn Malventanto

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI!

Program length: 1:06:12

Podcast topics of discussion:

  1. Week in Reviews:
    1. 0:01:45 AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB Boost Review
    2. 0:15:30 MSI GeForce GTX 670 Power Edition
    3. 0:24:55 Galaxy GeForce GTX 670 GC 4GB
    4. 0:28:10 Samsung Series 5-550 Chromebook Review
  2. 0:29:34 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI!
  3. News items of interest:
    1. 0:32:30 MS Surface to be $200??
      1. Lenovo Thinkpad/Ideapad Windows 8 Pro and RT tablets
    2. 0:37:30 Corsair Acquires Raptor Gaming
    3. 0:39:30 NVIDIA Fiscal reports
    4. 0:44:00 Random videos:
      1. UT2004 LAN Party
      2. Crytek 3 Tech Demo
    5. 0:47:50 GTX 660 Ti shows up for sale at CompUSA
    6. 0:49:00 Samsung Exynos 5 Dual Core SoC. ARM Cortex A15 CPU and ARM Mali T604 GPU
    7. 0:51:20 Intel RST Windows 8 compatibility
  4. Closing:
    1. 0:53:20 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
      1. Ryan: Diamond VStream Wirless USB to HDMI
      2. Jeremy: Wireless power for the price of a penny
      3. Josh: 512 GB SSD for cheeeeeap. Or sorta cheap.
      4. Allyn: iPazzPort 2.4GHz Mini Wireless Fly Air Mouse Keyboard with IR Remote
      5. Tim: Skydrive UI rehaul
      6. Scott: FEDEX tracking info sucks...
  1. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
  2. http://pcper.com/podcast
  3. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper and http://twitter.com/joshdwalrath
  4. Quakecon coverage at pcper.com/workshop. Hope to see you there!
  5. Closing/outro

Source: PC Perspective

HIS' Icy cool new HD7950

Subject: Graphics Cards | July 10, 2012 - 07:18 PM |
Tagged: HD7950, his, ICEQ Turbo

The newest member of the HIS Radeon ICEQ Turbo family is the HD7950, with the distinctive and effective custom cooler that makes these cards stand out.  As with many custom cards this one comes with a dual BIOS, one is locked at factory settings while the other allows you to overclock the card, so that even with an overclock that goes poorly you can always revert back to default clocks with the flick of a switch and a reboot.  At full load the Guru of 3D never once saw this card hit more than a few degrees north of 60C, making it one of the coolest modern GPUs going and the fans never became audible.  Once they got to overclocking, they loved what they saw even more.  At $390 it does carry a bit of a premium so you'd best decide if low temps and noise are worth the extra investment.

G3D_HISICY7950.jpg

"We review the HIS Radeon HD 7950 IceQX Turbo. The product comes factory overclocked very nicely for you as it is running a gentle 900 MHz clock frequency. HIS uses a custom PCB and dual-slot cooler making the card very easy to install. Despite that factory overclock and that cooler the noise levels remain at very low levels whereas the GPU temperatures remain downright excellent as we'll show you in this review."

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Graphics Cards

Source: Guru3D

MSI Announces 7950 Twin Frozr III Graphics Cards

Subject: Graphics Cards | January 31, 2012 - 05:48 PM |
Tagged: msi, HD7950, hd 7950, graphics cards, gpu, amd

MSI today officially announced their new Radeon HD 7950 graphics cards with Twin Frozr III coolers. Specifically, the new cards are part of the "R7950 Twin Frozr 3GD5/OC" series. The new Twin Frozr III cooler features a nickel plated block, two 8mm Superpipes (heatpipes), and dual 80mm propeller blade fans that, according to MSI, delivers up to 10 degrees Celsius lower GPU temperatures versus reference coolers. Further, the dark gray Twin Frozr III cooler reduces noise by 13.7dB by using two slower spinning fans versus the single reference design fan spinning twice or more as fast. This extra bit of overclocking headroom has allowed MSI to claim a large "core and memory voltage potential providing up to 37.5% overclockability" Just like the company's motherboards, they are advertising the new graphics cards as being built with Hi-c CAP Super Ferrite Choke and solid capacitors that pass MIL-STD-810G testing. Based on the AMD 28nm Radeon HD 7950 reference design, the card supports the PCI Express 3.0 interface.  Also, the card features 1 DVI, 1 HDMI, and two Mini-DisplayPort video outputs.

Twin Frozr 7950.jpg

Further specifications include 3 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384 bit bus, a core clock speed of 880 MHz, and memory clock of 5,200 MHz (effective, 1,300 MHz base). The card itself measures 261mm x 111mm x 38mm, (just under 10.3") which means that it should fit comfortably inside most Mid Tower (or larger) cases. While the 80 MHz increase in GPU clock speed over the reference design is not saying much, the cards themselves should have plenty of overclocking headroom beyond what MSI does at the factory. In our review of the AMD Radeon HD 7950 graphics card with reference cooler we achieved a nice 1050 MHz clock speed, and the "Supa-pipe" (as Josh likes to say) powered Twin Frozr III 7950 cards should be able to go even further beyond that, specific GPU permitting of course.

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In addition to the new Twin Frozr III cooler powered cards, MSI is releasing a version of the Radeon 7950 with a reference design cooler and another Radeon 7970 card with a reference cooler to provide gamers with plenty of alternative options. Unfortunately, there is no word (yet) on pricing or availability.  The Twin Frozr III version of the 7950 sure looks a lot cooler, so it will be interesting to see if it actually keeps the GPU cooler (heh).

Source: MSI

Intel, NVIDIA and AMD; all are having new GPU spring fling

Subject: General Tech | January 16, 2012 - 12:25 PM |
Tagged: amd, NVIDA, HD7950, kepler, Ivy Bridge, Intel

The arrival of the HD 7970 caused a bit of disappointment to some, not because of the performance of the card, instead it was the price that depressed many would be owners of the fastest GPU on the planet.  That price is fair, currently the competition sells their top card, the GTX 580 for about $500 and as the HD7970 is faster charging a ~10% premium makes perfect sense ... now if only they could do something about the stock problems.

All is not lost GPU fans, DigiTimes has confirmed AMD's HD7950 should be here by the end of the month and will offer the same next generation architecture at a lower price.  If it emulates the style of the HD6950 it will be a very popular card and will mean AMD beat NVIDIA to market with both enthusiast level cards.  It will likely be sometime in April before we start to see Kepler based cards from NVIDIA, of which they are being fairly closed mouth about.  We do know that they will be leading with mobile and mid-range chips, not the enthusiast level cards as AMD did, the reasons for that are widely debated.

Intel is also going to offer competition in the spring as they release Ivy Bridge with its integrated graphics.  That may take a chunk of AMD's Llano market share but their high end discrete GPUs should be safe.  NVIDIA on the other hand is vulnerable, if their mobile chips do not offer a significant advantage over Ivy Bridge's capabilities or cannot work in tandem with the chip then NVIDA's products will not be that attractive.  Even worse, if their mid-range cards do not live up to expectations, they may find AMD's previous generation of cards and Intel's iGPU dominating the market segment NVIDIA hoped to keep share in.

peddie.jpg

2011 market shares from Jon Peddie Research

"AMD, after announcing 28nm high-end Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, is set to add a new 28nm member Radeon HD 7950 by the end of January, while Nvidia, considering the yield rates of the 28nm process and its inventory levels, plans to officially release its 28nm Kepler in April, at the latest, according to sources from graphics card makers.

The sources noted that Nvidia wishes to make sure that the power consumption and the manufacturing process of the graphics chip all reach perfection before entering the 28nm generation. Since Nvidia is set to release its 28nm graphics card around the same time as Intel's upcoming 22nm Ivy Bridge processor, the sources believe Kepler series GPUs may have a chance to catch up with the demand for Intel's new CPUs."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

 

Source: DigiTimes

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