Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 2GB review
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Can a chubbier frame buffer give the HD 7790 a competitive edge?
Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 2GB
TechRadar Verdict
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We’re straying into the faintly awkward territory of frame buffer capacity here. How much video memory do you actually need, and how little can you really expect to get away with on a fairly entry-level graphics card these days?
These are the thorny issues we’ll have to contend with in reviewing a slightly chubbier version of AMD’s Radeon HD 7790. This 2GB version from Sapphire is essentially just that standard reference card, only this time with double the frame buffer.
By extension that means this card is using the same stock-clocked Bonnaire XT GPU, with its 896 Radeon core count and 1,050MHz clock speed. Sadly, that also means it’s only sporting the same limited 128-bit memory bus as the standard card, and that’s what’s really holding this card back on the VRAM side — not the memory capacity.
The card it ostensibly replaces is the end-of-life Radeon HD 7850 1GB, a card that was doing incredible things in terms of gaming frame rates with a single gigabyte of GDDR5, so you can see the damage having a weaker GPU and memory bus does to gaming performance.
Moar VROOM?
But we’ve gotten over the disappearance of the HD 7850 1GB card from the production line, mainly thanks to Nvidia’s recent efforts in the same price bracket. The GTX 650 Ti Boost card it recently unveiled is definitely channelling the spirit of the deceased card, offering performance way above its price tag, and therefore well above that of the competing HD 7790.
The GTX 650 Ti Boost is more expensive than even this 2GB version of the HD 7790, but only by just over a tenner, and the performance benefits easily justify that extra expense.
That card is also running with a 2GB frame buffer, but the superior GPU and wider 192-bit bus allow it to remain ahead of the AMD card in all but the DiRT Showdown benchmarks.
So, dear readers, have you been wondering why we haven’t compared this 2GB card to the original 1GB version? Well, that’s because the extra capacity frame buffer makes little difference in pure gaming terms, especially comparing it to the cheaper and slightly overclocked Dual-X version from Sapphire.
So what’s the extra memory doing? Well, because of the weak memory bus, it’s not doing anything to help push things along any quicker. What it is doing though is pushing up the minimum frame rate. Well, it’s pushing it up a bit.
Benchmarks
DirectX 11: Tessellation performance
Heaven 4.0: Frames per second: Higher is better
SAPPHIRE HD 7790 2GB: 10.1
SAPPHIRE HD 7790 DUAL-X: 9.9
NVIDIA GTX 650 TI BOOST: 14.2
DirectX11 1080p gaming performance
Max Payne 3: Frames per second: Higher is better
SAPPHIRE HD 7790 2GB: 36
SAPPHIRE HD 7790 DUAL-X: 34
NVIDIA GTX 650 TI BOOST: 49
Crysis 3: Frames per second: Higher is better
SAPPHIRE HD 7790 2GB: 22
SAPPHIRE HD 7790 DUAL-X: 22
NVIDIA GTX 650 TI BOOST: 28
That difference isn’t worth the extra money when the GTX 650 Ti Boost is sitting so close to it on the digital shelves.
Nvidia is still having to play catch-up in the volume sector (in terms of actual gaming performance) and it’s refreshing to see it making a real play with some quality technology for a decent price.
Verdict
Sadly for AMD, these new cards with the first GCN 2.0 GPUs aren’t moving things forward enough. Simply dropping another 1GB of video memory onto this graphics card isn’t going to help that new Bonnaire XT GPU’s gaming chops.
Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 2GB: Price Comparison
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Sapphire HD 7790 review | PC Gamer
Our Verdict
A weak GPU for the same price as a quality one thats set to disappear.
Naughty AMD.
Why you can trust PC Gamer
Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
I deliberately held back the review for this latest card from AMD so I could put it out alongside a review of the competing card from Nvidia, the GTX 650 Ti Boost . If I hadn’t then this review would have simply been a lot of me crying over the loss of the HD 7850 1GB, which will no longer be manufactured to make way for the HD 7790.
There will still be quite a lot of crying about the HD 7850, however. It was one of my favourite cards of this generation — it had the sort of gaming chops that belied its budget pricing and it still makes me feel gooey and nostalgic — in the same way I feel about the beautiful 8800GT and the GTX 460. Oh, those were the days.
But the HD 7850 was probably quite expensive to produce thanks to the Pitcairn Pro chip, with its nigh three billion transistors and budget-busting 256-bit memory bus.
The Bonnaire XT chip at the heart of the HD 7790, meanwhile, is very much a budget chip, without any of the top-end extras that came in the Pitcairn Pro-based card it is ostensibly replacing.
«It posts mediocre benchmark figures — worse than the HD 7850 1GB for much the same price, even when overclocked.»
AMD have cut the memory bus in half, offering a miserly 128-bit bus and have created a much smaller GPU, with 800 million fewer transistors and a 160mm 2 die compared with the 212mm 2 chip of the HD 7850 1GB.
This has a major impact on performance. Compared with the Pitcairn Pro chip, it posts pretty mediocre benchmark figures — worse than the HD 7850 1GB for much the same price, even when overclocked. Things look grimmer still when you put AMD’s card alongside Nvidia’s efforts with the impressive GTX 650 Ti Boost.
Nvidia has improved the silicon in pretty much every area it can and yet their card comes with the same pricetag as the original GTX 650 Ti.
Now, that’s how you do a refresh.
Peculiarly, this is a total reversal of form: AMD have always been the ones to create great budget cards with impressive performance while Nvidia created expensive, worse-performing options in the volume segment. Things still look good for AMD in the other segments, with the HD 7970GHz Edition having the lead over the GTX 680, and the HD 7870 XT ruling the roost below it, but the GTX 650 Ti Boost could represent Nvidia making a price/performance comeback.
Quite what AMD were trying to do with the HD 7790 — aside from just designing a cheaper chip — I really don’t know. AMD have garnered a lot of goodwill over the last few releases, and I hope their weak showing with the HD 7790 doesn’t represent future initiatives.
A whole lotta benchmarks…
DirectX 11 tessellation performance
Heaven 4.0 (2560×1600) – FPS: higher is better
EVGA GTX 660 SC – 16.2
GTX 650 Ti Boost – 14.2
HD 7850 2GB – 12.
7
Sapphire HD 7790 – 9.9
DirectX 11 high-res gaming performance
Batman: Arkham City (2560×1600) – FPS: higher is better
EVGA GTX 660 SC – 50
GTX 650 Ti Boost – 44
HD 7850 2GB – 39
Sapphire HD 7790 – 30
Bioshock Infinite (2560×1600) – FPS: higher is better
EVGA GTX 660 SC – 33
GTX 650 Ti Boost – 28
HD 7850 2GB – 23
Sapphire HD 7790 – 19
DirectX 11 1080p gaming performance
Crysis 3 (1920×1080) – FPS: higher is better
EVGA GTX 660 SC – 34
GTX 650 Ti Boost – 28
HD 7850 2GB – 26
Sapphire HD 7790 – 22
DiRT Showdown (1920×1080) – FPS: higher is better
HD 7850 2GB – 57
Sapphire HD 7790 – 51
EVGA GTX 660 SC – 48
GTX 650 Ti Boost – 41
Max Payne 3 (1920×1080) – FPS: higher is better
HD 7850 2GB – 37
EVGA GTX 660 SC — 36
GTX 650 Ti Boost – 32
Sapphire HD 7790 – 32
Read our review policy
Sapphire HD 7790 review
A weak GPU for the same price as a quality one thats set to disappear.
Naughty AMD.
Dave has been gaming since the days of Zaxxon and Lady Bug on the Colecovision, and code books for the Commodore Vic 20 (Death Race 2000!). He built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 16, and finally finished bug-fixing the Cyrix-based system around a year later. When he dropped it out of the window. He first started writing for Official PlayStation Magazine and Xbox World many decades ago, then moved onto PC Format full-time, then PC Gamer, TechRadar, and T3 among others. Now he’s back, writing about the nightmarish graphics card market, CPUs with more cores than sense, gaming laptops hotter than the sun, and SSDs more capacious than a Cybertruck.
Review and testing of the video card Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 DUAL-X OC GECID.com. Page 1
::>Video cards
>2013
> Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 DUAL-X OC
05/18/2013
Page 1
Page 2
One page
Since the official presentation of the new AMD Radeon HD 779 graphics card0, almost two months have passed and, accordingly, the number of versions of this video accelerator from various companies is increasing every day.
This time in our test lab there was a solution from Sapphire, whose products are well known to our readers for the optimal ratio of features and cost. Let’s go directly to the review of the Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 DUAL-X OC, and find out if it has any advantages over the previously reviewed versions from MSI and ASUS.
Specification:
|
Model |
Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 DUAL-X OC VERSION |
|
Graphics core |
AMD Bonaire |
|
Number of universal shader processors |
896 |
|
Supported Technologies |
DirectX 11.1, DirectCompute 11, OpenGL 4.2, OpenCL 1.2, AMD Eyefinity, AMD CrossFireX, AMD HD3D, AMD PowerPlay, AMD PowerTune, AMD Eyespeed, AMD ZeroCore |
|
Graphics core frequency, MHz |
1075 |
|
Memory frequency (effective), MHz |
1600 (6400) |
|
Memory size, MB |
1024 |
|
Memory type |
GDDR5 |
|
Memory bus width, bits |
128 |
|
Tire type |
PCI Express 3. |
|
Maximum resolution |
Up to 2560×1600 — DVI Up to 2048×1536 — VGA (via adapter) Up to 4096×2160 — DisplayPort |
|
Display interfaces |
DVI-I DVI-D HDMI DisplayPort |
|
Support for HDCP and HD video decoding |
Yes |
|
Minimum power supply requirement, W |
500 |
|
Dimensions, mm |
219 x 112 |
|
Drivers |
Latest drivers can be downloaded from the Sapphire website or the GPU manufacturer’s website. |
|
Manufacturer website |
Sapphire |
0 x16 All prices for Sapphire+11210-01-20G
The Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 DUAL-X OC comes with a slight factory overclock.
So, instead of the recommended 1000 MHz, the graphics core operates at a frequency of 1075 MHz, and the video memory instead of 6000 MHz is overclocked to 6400 MHz. You can also pay attention to the proprietary cooling system DUAL-X. Otherwise, at first glance, we have a quite typical representative of the AMD Radeon HD 7790.
Packaging and contents
The video card comes in a rather compact box designed in a typical Sapphire style. From the useful information on the front side, you can find a mention that the video card is overclocked at the factory, equipped with one gigabyte of GDDR5 video memory, and also supports AMD Eyefinity technology.
The reverse side of the box, again, meets us with an image of a girl in Military style and a list of supported technologies and features of the video card, as well as a small marketing description. List of system requirements for a computer where you plan to install Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 DUAL-X OC, is located on one of the sides of the box and, based on the recommendations, the power supply in such a system must have a power of at least 500 watts.
In addition to the usual documentation and software CD, in the box with the Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 DUAL-X OC, users will receive a DVI to VGA adapter, a CrossFireX bridge, a video card power adapter, and a very nice bonus in the form of an HDMI cable . At the moment, the package bundle of Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 DUAL-X OC is the richest among all versions of AMD Radeon HD 7790 that we met.
To display images on the Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 DUAL-X OC video card, a quite familiar set of interfaces is provided:
-
1x DVI-I;
-
1x DVI-D;
-
1x HDMI;
-
1x DisplayPort.
The following resolutions are supported:
-
Digital — up to 4096×2160;
-
Analog — up to 2048×1536.
Appearance and element base
The video card is made on a rather original textolite 219 mm long. As you can see, a small part of it is free from any elements, both from the front and from the back.
Apparently, the Sapphire engineers took such an original move solely in order to equalize the length of the CO with the length of the textolite. In general, the layout of the main elements is almost completely similar to the versions from MSI and ASUS, except that Sapphire uses different chokes and field effect transistors.
The power stabilization system for the main components of the video card is made according to the 4 + 1 + 1 phase scheme familiar to other versions of AMD Radeon HD 7790 (for GPU, PLL and memory chips, respectively).
The NCP81022 chip from ON Semiconductor is used as a PWM controller. It is also used in the two versions we reviewed earlier from MSI and ASUS. According to the «good» tradition, technical documentation on new controllers gets to the masses for a very long time, and we still do not have any information on it, despite the fact that the first mention of it appeared in the third quarter of 2012.
In addition to the PCI Express bus, the video card is powered by one additional connector on the right side of the graphics accelerator.
Note that, although not quite simple, you can disconnect the power cable with your hands, without auxiliary tools.
Also, the connector for connecting the CrossFireX bridge has not disappeared, which will allow you to combine two similar accelerators for joint calculation of graphic effects. Recall that with the performance of two video cards based on AMD Radeon HD 7790 in AMD CrossFireX x16+x16 mode can be found in the ASUS Radeon HD 7790 DirectCU II OC review.
The reverse side of the board, with the exception of the PWM controller and a few elements of the power system, is practically devoid of significant components.
The video card itself is based on the AMD Bonaire graphics core, produced according to the 28 nm process technology and having 896 universal shader pipelines and 16 rasterization units. The frequency of the graphics core, as we have already mentioned, has been increased by 7.5% and is 1075 MHz. Data exchange between the graphics core and memory is carried out via a 128-bit bus.
The video card’s memory, the total amount of which is 1 GB, is assembled using 4 x 256 MB chips manufactured by Hynix, marked H5GQ2h34AFR ROC and a nominal operating frequency of 6000 MHz. Despite the fact that the memory chips are already overclocked from their nominal frequency, given the results of testing other versions of the AMD Radeon HD 7790, we still hope to achieve at least some significant increase in overclocking.
Cooling system
Video card with DUAL-X cooling system installed, occupies two expansion slots and has a total length of 219 mm. In this regard, the title of the most compact version of the AMD Radeon HD 7790 still belongs to the MSI Radeon HD 7790 OC, which is shorter by almost 3 cm.
plates. Directly responsible for cooling are two fans with an impeller diameter of 75 mm, which are mounted on a casing that covers the entire structure from above.
Two copper heat pipes with a diameter of 8 mm are used to evenly distribute heat over the entire area of the radiator.
The heat pipes are securely soldered to the heatsink fins. We also note that the tubes are not covered with a layer of nickel, which can adversely affect the CO efficiency during operation.
CO contacts directly with the graphics chip through a copper base and a thin layer of thermal paste. Also note that the Sapphire Radeon HD 779 graphics card0 DUAL-X OC compares favorably with its competitors by the presence of cooling of memory chips and field-effect transistors of a power stabilizer. The cooler itself is directly responsible for cooling the former, heat exchange with which occurs with the help of small thermal pads, while a separate small radiator is used to remove heat from the power elements.
With automatic fan speed control, in the maximum load mode, the graphics core heated up to 62 degrees, and the cooler, judging by the monitoring readings, worked at 45% of its capacity.
In the maximum fan speed mode, the temperature of the GPU drops to 57 degrees.
At the same time, the noise level can be described as «below average».
When there is no load, the graphics core and memory frequencies are automatically reduced to reduce the power consumption and heat dissipation of the graphics core. In this mode, the GPU temperature does not exceed 38 degrees.
For better visibility and evaluation of the cooling system efficiency Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 DUAL-X OC let’s make a small comparison with the AMD Radeon HD 7790 versions we tested earlier:
|
Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 DUAL-X OC |
MSI Radeon HD 7790 OC |
ASUS Radeon HD 7790 DirectCU II OC |
|
|
Type of cooling system |
Axial |
Axial |
Axial |
|
Number of fans |
2 |
1 |
2 |
|
Blade diameter |
75 mm. |
74 mm. |
75 mm. |
|
GPU frequency |
1075 |
1050 |
1075 |
|
Load temperature (automatic cooler adjustment) |
62 |
59 |
64 |
|
Load temperature (maximum cooler speed) |
57 |
53 |
53 |
|
Noise at maximum speed |
Below average |
Below average |
Below average |
As you can see, the cooling systems of all three video cards please with their low noise level even at maximum fan speeds and demonstrate approximately equal temperature values, with an eye to the lower overclocking level of the MSI card, of course.
And yet, despite the similar results, in our opinion, the cooling system from ASUS turned out to be the most successful, which, with an equal overclocking level with a video card from Sapphire, demonstrated the best temperature indicators and a similar noise level.
AMD Radeon HD 6850 vs Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC: What is the difference?
35 BALLLA
AMD Radeon HD 6850
42 Ballla
SAPPHire HD 7790 Dual-X OC
Winter when comparing
VS
54 AMD Radeon HD 6850 9000 9000 9000 9000 SAPHA
Why is AMD Radeon HD 6850 better than Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC?
- 7.6 GPixel/s higher pixel speed?
24.8GPixel/s vs 17.2 GPixel/s - 26GB/s more memory bandwidth?
128GB/s vs 102GB/s - 128bit wider memory bus?
256bit vs 128bit - 64 more stream processors?
960 vs 896 - 16 more ROPs?
32 vs 16 - Supports 1 more displays?
3 vs 2 - 17mm narrower?
198mm vs 215mm - 2 more mini DisplayPort outputs?
2 vs 0
Why is Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC better than AMD Radeon HD 6850?
- GPU frequency 300MHz higher?
1075MHz vs 775MHz - 0. 44 TFLOPS higher than FLOPS?
1.93 TFLOPS vs 1.49 TFLOPS - 42W below TDP?
85W vs 127W - 600MHz faster memory speed?
1600MHz vs 1000MHz - 2400MHz higher effective clock speed?
6400MHz vs 4000MHz - 23 GTexels/s higher number of textured pixels?
60.2 GTexels/s vs 37.2 GTexels/s - 380million more transistors?
2080 million vs 1700 million - 5°C lower GPU temperature at boot?
69°C vs 74°C
Which comparisons are the most popular?
AMD Radeon HD 6850
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 550 Ti
Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti (OEM)
AMD Radeon HD 6850
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050
Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC
vs
ASRock Radeon RX 5700 XT Taichi X OC+
AMD Radeon HD 6850
vs
Sapphire HD 6570 4GB
Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC
vs
AMD Radeon R9 280X
AMD Radeon HD 6850
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 560
Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC
VS
AMD Radeon HD 7790
AMD Radeon HD 6850
VS
NVIDIA GEFORCE GT 630
SAPPHIRE SAPPHIRA
9000 VS
POTERCOLOR RED RADN RED RED RADN0003
AMD Radeon HD 6850
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTX 650
Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC
vs
Asus Dual Radeon RX 6650 XT OC Edition
AMD Radeon HD 6850
vs
Nvidia GeForce GTS 450
AMD Radeon HD 6850
VS
AMD Radeon HD 7750
AMD Radeon HD 6850
VS
AMD Radeon R5
AMD Radeon HD 6850 9000 TS
NVIDIA GEFOR GETOR NVIDI0003
Price Match
User Reviews
Performance
GPU Clock Speed
775MHz
1075MHz
The Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) has a higher clock speed.
Turbo GPU
Unknown. Help us offer a price. (AMD Radeon HD 6850)
Unknown. Help us offer a price. (Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC)
When the GPU is running below its limits, it can jump to a higher clock speed to increase performance.
pixel rate
24.8 GPixel/s
17.2 GPixel/s
The number of pixels that can be displayed on the screen every second.
FLOPS
1.49 TFLOPS
1.93 TFLOPS
FLOPS is a measure of GPU processing power.
texture size
37.2 GTexels/s
60.2 GTexels/s
Number of textured pixels that can be displayed on the screen every second.
GPU memory speed
1000MHz
1600MHz
Memory speed is one aspect that determines memory bandwidth.
Shading patterns
Shading units (or stream processors) are small processors in a graphics card that are responsible for processing various aspects of an image.
texture units (TMUs)
TMUs take texture units and map them to the geometric layout of the 3D scene. More TMUs generally means texture information is processed faster.
ROPs
ROPs are responsible for some of the final steps of the rendering process, such as writing the final pixel data to memory and for performing other tasks such as anti-aliasing to improve the appearance of graphics.
Memory
effective memory speed
4000MHz
6400MHz
The effective memory clock speed is calculated from the size and data transfer rate of the memory. A higher clock speed can give better performance in games and other applications.
maximum memory bandwidth
128GB/s
102GB/s
This is the maximum rate at which data can be read from or stored in memory.
VRAM (video RAM) is the dedicated memory of the graphics card.
More VRAM usually allows you to run games at higher settings, especially for things like texture resolution.
memory bus width
256bit
128bit
A wider memory bus means it can carry more data per cycle. This is an important factor in memory performance, and therefore the overall performance of the graphics card.
GDDR versions of
Later versions of GDDR memory offer improvements such as higher data transfer rates, which improve performance.
Supports memory debug code
✖AMD Radeon HD 6850
✖Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC
Memory debug code can detect and fix data corruption. It is used when necessary to avoid distortion, such as in scientific computing or when starting a server.
Features
DirectX version
DirectX is used in games with a newer version that supports better graphics.
OpenGL version
The newer the OpenGL version, the better graphics quality in games.
OpenCL version
Some applications use OpenCL to use the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU) for non-graphical computing. Newer versions are more functional and better quality.
Supports multi-monitor technology
✔AMD Radeon HD 6850
✔Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC
The video card has the ability to connect multiple screens. This allows you to set up multiple monitors at the same time to create a more immersive gaming experience, such as a wider field of view.
GPU boot temperature
Lower boot temperature means the card generates less heat and the cooling system works better.
supports ray tracing
✖AMD Radeon HD 6850
✖Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC
Ray tracing is an advanced light rendering technique that provides more realistic lighting, shadows and reflections in games.
Supports 3D
✔AMD Radeon HD 6850
✔Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC
Allows you to view in 3D (if you have a 3D screen and glasses).
supports DLSS
✖AMD Radeon HD 6850
✖Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC
DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) is an AI based scaling technology. This allows the graphics card to render games at lower resolutions and upscale them to higher resolutions with near-native visual quality and improved performance. DLSS is only available in some games.
PassMark (G3D) result
This test measures the graphics performance of a graphics card. Source: Pass Mark.
Ports
has HDMI output
✔AMD Radeon HD 6850
✔Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC
Devices with HDMI or mini HDMI ports can stream HD video and audio to the connected display.
HDMI connectors
Unknown.