Test methodology
Sapphire HD 7950 OC |
Sapphire HD 7950 OC |
|---|---|
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GPU comparisons |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Graphics card | Approx. price |
GPU clock (MHz) |
Stream processors |
Shader clock (MHz) |
Memory clock (MHz) |
Memory bus (bits) |
Graphics driver | |
| 2x Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC (3,072MB) |
£750 | 900 | 3,584 | 900 | 5,000 | 384 (x2) | Catalyst 11.12 RC11 | |
| Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC (3,072MB) |
£375 | 900 | 1,792 | 900 | 5,000 | 384 | Catalyst 11.12 RC11 | |
| 2x EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SC (1,536MB) |
£770 | 797 | 1,024 | 1,594 | 4,050 | 384 (x2) | ForceWare 290.53 beta | |
| EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SC (1,536MB) |
£385 | 797 | 512 | 1,594 | 4,050 | 384 | ForceWare 290.53 beta | |
HEXUS high-end test bench |
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| Processor | Intel Core i5-2500K (3.33GHz, 6MB smart cache, quad-core, LGA1155) | |||||||||||
| Motherboard | Intel Desktop Board DP67BG | |||||||||||
| Memory | 8GB Corsair Vengeance (9-9-9-24 @ 1,600MHz) | |||||||||||
| Power Supply | Corsair AX850W | |||||||||||
| Monitor | Dell 30in 3007WFP | |||||||||||
| Disk drive(s) | Crucial RealSSD C300 (256GB) | |||||||||||
| Chassis | Corsair Graphite Series 600T | |||||||||||
| Operating system | Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit, SP1) | |||||||||||
HEXUS high-end benchmark suite |
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| 3DMark 11 | Performance and Extreme presets | |||||||||||
| Aliens vs. Predator | DX11, 1,920x1,080 and 2,560x1,600 resolutions, 4xAA, 16xAF, very high quality | |||||||||||
| Battlefield 3 | DX11, 1,920x1,080 and 2,560x1,600 resolutions, 4xMSAA, 16xAF, ultra quality | |||||||||||
| Batman: Arkham City | DX11, 1,920x1,080 and 2,560x1,600 resolutions, 8xMSAA, extreme quality | |||||||||||
| Crysis 2 | DX11, 1,920x1,080 and 2,560x1,600 resolutions, 4xAA, ultra quality | |||||||||||
| Just Cause 2 | DX10, 1,920x1,080 and 2,560x1,600 resolutions, 4xAA, 16xAF, very high quality | |||||||||||
| Total War: Shogun 2 | DX11, 1,920x1,080 and 2,560x1,600 resolutions, 4xMSAA, 16xAF, high quality | |||||||||||
| Power Consumption | To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record mains power draw both when idle and whilst playing Total War: Shogun 2 | |||||||||||
| Temperature | To emulate real-world usage scenarios, we record GPU core temperature both when idle and whilst playing Total War: Shogun 2 | |||||||||||
| Noise | A PCE-318 meter is used to record noise levels when idle and whilst playing Total War: Shogun 2 | |||||||||||
| Overclocking | Pushing the graphics card as far as it will go, we increase speeds and re-run the Aliens vs. Predator benchmark | |||||||||||
| HEXUS bang4buck | A custom metric used to evaluate comparative performance with price factored in | |||||||||||
Notes
All cards are tested using the latest available drivers from AMD and NVIDIA, and all of our gaming benchmarks remain unchanged - making it easy for you to cross-reference results from other recent reviews.
What we have here, however, is a simple showdown; for those of you who are contemplating spending somewhere in the region of £800 on graphics, what's the better bet for gaming? A pair of Radeon HD 7950s, or a pair of GeForce GTX 580s?