AMD Radeon HD 7950 review

However, the card was particularly impressive in Crysis 2, which we run at 1,920 x 1,080 with Ultra detail and using the high resolution texture pack. In this test the HD 7950 was slightly faster than the HD 7970, with 45.4fps compared to 42.9fps. We re-tested the HD 7970 with several different sets of drivers but were unable to make it match the HD 7950’s score. Crysis 2’s high-resolution textures take up a large amount of graphics memory, so both cards’ 3GB of RAM may be the bottleneck, and there may still be some teething problems with the HD 7970’s drivers.

Unfortunately, the HD 7950 doesn’t have the HD 7970’s overclocking prowess. While we could push the HD 7970 up to 1,125MHz core speed and 1,575MHz memory speed – increases of 200MHz and 195MHz respectively – we could only get the HD 7950 up to 900MHz core and 1,350MHz RAM, which are increases of just 100MHz for both the core and graphics memory. At these speeds Crysis 2 jumped up to 51.7fps, but this couldn’t match the HD 7970’s 57.5fps overclocked score.

The HD 7950 is a highly capable card which is good value compared to the HD 7970; it can play current games smoothly at their highest detail levels, even with three monitors in Eyefinity mode, so we don’t see much reason to spend the extra £100 on the HD 7970. There is some competition from the last-generation Radeon HD 6970, which is currently £250, but that card’s 2GB of RAM hampers it in the hugely-demanding Crysis 2 test. For the moment, the Radeon HD 7950 is the high-end graphics card to buy.