14 DAY TRIAL // Another day, another graphics card. Yesterday proved quite abundant in AMD-based graphics adapters, since Advanced Micro Devices finally released the Bonaire-based adapter, but the stream doesn't seem to have stopped. Club 3D has added its contribution.
Bonaire is the latest graphics processing unit based on the 28nm manufacturing process from TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company).
It sits somewhere between the Cape Verde used in the other HD 7700 series, and the Pitcairn of the HD 7800 line. Obviously, it doesn't even get close to Tahiti/Tahiti XT (HD 7900).
The chip gets 56 TMUs, 16 ROPs, 896 stream processors and a memory interface of 128 bits, which leads to a bandwidth of 96 GB/s for the 1 GB of GDDR5 VRAM.
Speaking of the memory, it functions at a frequency of 6 GHz (6000 MHz), which is actually quite a lot for a board with the aforementioned, arguably narrow interface.
Club 3D stuck to all these features, and even the connectivity: a pair of DVI outputs, an HDMI port and a DisplayPort. Enough for Eyefinity multi-display setups.
As for GPU speed, AMD chose 1 GHz, but Club 3D pushed it a bit higher, to 1030 MHz. In any case, the advanced “dynamic clocking technology” is present and accounted for. It figures out how much horsepower a game needs and slows down or speeds up the GPU accordingly. We have heard murmurs that up to 7.5% better performance can be squeezed out of the card thanks to it.
Finally, the TDP (thermal design power) is of 85W. Larger than what the PCI Express slot alone can supply, but not overly so. A single 6-pin PCIe power input is sufficient for the extra juice.
The new Club 3D HD 7790 video card is called '13Series and sells for $149.99 or a few dollars more, which can mean anything from 116 Euro (exchange rate) to 149.99 Euro (the more likely EU tag).