Final Thoughts

Gigabyte's Radeon HD 7950 is surprisingly fast, delivering 10% more performance than a stock model on average and sitting just seven% below the Hard disk drive 7970. Whereas nearly Hd 6950s could be unlocked turning them into fully-fledged HD 6970s, the HD 7950 doesn't seem to require such modifications.

Those willing to dabble with a trivial actress overclocking should exist able to get Hard disk drive 7970-similar speed out of any Hard disk 7950, just Gigabyte's model made the task easier by coming partly overclocked. Its WindForce 3X cooler besides helped keeping the bill of fare'southward temperatures in cheque while making nary a peep.

Gigabyte'south HD 7950 also averaged 32% faster than AMD's previous-gen flagship and information technology bested Nvidia'south GTX 580 by 14%, when testing games at 2560x1600. Brand no mistake: the Hd 7950 is dang fast. Just is it worth $490?

At this price, Gigabyte'southward card is fetching approximately ix% more the standard Hard disk drive 7950 (which, over again, is about 10% slower) and it's about 13% cheaper than the near affordable Hd 7970 (which, again, is virtually 7% faster). Add the benefits of Gigabyte's cooler and the WindForce 3 drives a hard bargain.

If you're spending $450 on a graphics card, parting with another $forty should be easy. As a side note, we recently published an commodity alert users almost the poor value of factory overclocked cards. We have to commend Gigabyte for bucking this trend with the Hard disk drive 7950 every bit its premium is justified.

Pros: Gigabyte's factory overclocking and enhanced cooling prove a worthy addition. Functioning to spare. Better value than buying a HD 7970 board.

Cons: Loftier-end graphics cards usually fetch a harsh premium over mainstream boards and this is no exception. Price might be lowered in one case competition arrives later this twelvemonth.