XFX Radeon HD 7950 Black Edition Overclocked 3GB Graphics Card Review

Well from the start we had good expectations of this card let alone the 7950 in general and the performance figures prove that for themselves. Even though this card is slightly slower than the reference 7970 that we looked at not too long ago, it is a factory overclock of the 7950 and this to a lot of people matters as the performance aspect is what everyone is after at the end of the day. Going with this comparison in mind, the 7970 reference card is the only other 7xxx series card that we have looked at so far and so this is where we have had to use as the yard stick so to say.

What surprised us the most is the performance that was experienced from this card. Yet again its another truce to AMD for pushing the boundaries for new technologies and performance limits. In virtually every single test XFX’s 7950 Black Edition Overclock was only a matter frames behind its bigger brother and this makes a huge difference. On the tests where the margins were surprising, the surprises were all under Eyefinity conditions,  Metro 2033 was one of these. For it to nudge past the 7970 scores – if only by a frame or so – is a surprise and we have to take our hats of to XFX for achieving this with this card. We don’t know as of yet how the standard revisions of the 7950 will perform in comparison, naturally we expect them to be a little lower but not by a lot.

Taking a step back from the outstanding performance aspects of the card we have to agree that the bespoke cooler design that XFX have used on their Black Edition cards is clean, crisp and would look great in any case. The new cooler works very well to keep the cards temperatures stable under any level of load and any heat is quickly reduced when the card returns to its idle state.

Taking an overview on all of the benchmarks, no matter what test it was given, the 7950 Black Edition performed almost just as well as its bigger brother, naturally we wasn’t expecting it to beat it, but to come this close is a big thing to shout about and we have to give XFX the credit for pulling this off.

So how much should you be expecting to shell out for all of this?  Well recommended pricing for the 7950 from AMD is set at £349.99 and the XFX Black Edition Overclock is set to have an RRP of £416.99/

We’ve known for a while that this new series of cards had a lot to offer and as we mentioned not too long ago in our 7970 review, we was looking forward to seeing what AMDs partners would create to take the reference designs to the next level and on the whole XFX have taken a fantastic card, and made it some.

Overclocking wise we will see that for another article along with some CrossFireX performance testing so that is the next big thing with the new 7950 to look our for.

You can also check out our video review for this card here.