Monday, January 30th 2012
Single Fan Non-Reference Design Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 Pictured
A little earlier this month, we were treated to pictures of Sapphire's dual-fan Radeon HD 7950 OC graphics card. It appears that the card pictured earlier is not the only non-reference design HD 7950 from Sapphire, as it has a slightly more affordable single-fan model in the works. This model likely sticks to AMD reference clock speeds of 800 MHz core, 1250 MHz (5.00 GHz GDDR5 effective) out of the box.
The single-fan HD 7950 appears to have a blue-colored PCB that is likely to be AMD's cost-effective reference design. The cooler appears to have a compact heatsink that is cooled by a single central fan. Display outputs include two mini-DisplayPort, and one each of HDMI and DVI. We're also hearing from the source that 900 MHz core with unchanged (1250/5000 MHz) memory will be the maximum factory-OC permitted by AMD to AIB partners. That is not to say that the HD 7950's OC potential beyond that will be limited in any way.
Update: Augmented with more images from Expreview.
Sources:
OBR-Hardware, Expreview
The single-fan HD 7950 appears to have a blue-colored PCB that is likely to be AMD's cost-effective reference design. The cooler appears to have a compact heatsink that is cooled by a single central fan. Display outputs include two mini-DisplayPort, and one each of HDMI and DVI. We're also hearing from the source that 900 MHz core with unchanged (1250/5000 MHz) memory will be the maximum factory-OC permitted by AMD to AIB partners. That is not to say that the HD 7950's OC potential beyond that will be limited in any way.
61 Comments on Single Fan Non-Reference Design Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 Pictured
HD6950 was $299.
Although I gotta say, that cooler might be enough to drop the price a bit. Interesting stuff, very intersting.
pic comparing the pcb's 2 c if the full coverage waterblocks on the market will work? i've read that
its gonna b hard 2 find waterblocks for these. hope i'm wrong.
the fan looks like unserious at all, and the box cover is bad
their design department must be half sleep when done that
The 7970 reference from W1zz's review(note the different VRM):
A 1275Mhz core clock is 41% OC not 64... (assuming 900 is standard as per your GPU-Z screenshot)
Very good nonetheless.
Interesting that the pathetic looking cooler can keep it cool though. The HD7970 has a much larger Vapor chamber and that needs some hefty fan RPM to keep temps in check.
O/T that cooler is shit. If GFX mfg's were smart they would offer us card's minus HSF seeing as so many people ditch the stocker's anyway's, it would be a win - win. End user save money and mfg save money, stoopid companies....
I don't' see why people find fault with the cooler, it does the job, there's no benefit to a better cooler as it wouldn't allow high clocks anyway and the GPU is sufficiently cool. All it would do is increase prices. It's good enough as it is.
I have a similar cooler on my XFX card, and it's loud. "Aftermarket"(non-reference) cooling solutions should beat the stock option in some way, either by cooling ability, or by noise levels, IMHO.
Just my $0.02
:rockout:
Anyone with a coloured name is staff, myself included.
Let's see GTX580 SLi come close to the 100% scaling that AMD have had since 6870 & 6850 landed
vs
GTX 580 has been out for over a year, and a year later, we're supposed to pay the same prices, a year later? That kinda goes against the grain of technology actually progressing.
If i look at it that way, then it took AMD a year to catch up to nv in price/performance, so they are over a year behind the times.
The passage of time makes the value of technology less. GTX 580 performance was so 2010, and it's now 2012.
Yes, AMD's multi-GPU scaling is good, but not everone runs multiple GPUs, so that bit is of very little importance to a lot of users.
AMD ahs new leadership, and since then, we have had both a CPU launch, and a GPU launch. Both items, from the consumer perspective, are overpriced. Many have lost faith in AMD, and will continue to do so unless this changes. Most people want better value for their dollar, and nothing AMD has right now fits that bill, except the 6-series cards.
And then there's that. Because 6-series scaling is so good, you can get better performance from 6-series Crossfire, for less cost than a single 7-series card. If it wasn't for that, I personally would have no complaints, but it's hard to justify purchase of 7970 when the same dollar value will get me dual 6950 2GB cards, that will perform better than the 7970.
Since the 7970 doesn't really offer more feature-wise comapred to 6-series cards, other than individual GPU performance, I do not know why you even question things like this. Nothing in 7970 justifies the higher asking price. NOTHING.
the 7950 in the OP, and it's cooling design and BOM, only makes this situation worse.