14 DAY TRIAL // As some may have learned by now, AMD's partners have started releasing their respective versions of the Radeon HD 7950 graphics adapter.
It was known from a while back that Advanced Micro Devices would unleash the Radeon HD 7950 graphics card on January 31, 2012.
Sure enough, the release has taken place, so interested consumers can go here and check it out.
As it happens, VTX3D is among the AMD partners that moved most swiftly, having already pushed forth its HD7950.
The specifications are unchanged from the base sheet, but that only means that this item will be among the cheapest models out there.
Speaking of pricing, the “regular” HD 7950 costs around $450 in the US, or it should, but listings seem to be a bit higher right now. The European models will hover at around 420 Euro.
Going back to VTX3D's device, the Radeon HD 7950 has the Tahiti GPU operating at 800 MHz, while the 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM work at 5 GHz.
Additionally, the PCI Express Gen 3 interface is supported (not that the extra bandwidth actually does anything), as are AMD's “standard” technologies.
That means CrossFire X (for multi-GPU configurations) and AMD Eyefinity (enables multi-monitor setups), among other things.
Furthermore, buyers of the new item will get the latest DirectX 11 technology, namely DirectX 11.1, which brings faster tessellation and DirectCompute.
Finally, AMD PowerTune technology makes it easy to optimize performance, by dynamically increasing GPU engine clock under heavy workloads.
The video controller's TDP (thermal design power) limit is higher than the amount of power normally used, so PowerTune takes advantage of it.
Other features include AMD APP Acceleration technology (offloads computing from CPU to GPU), a dual-slot cooler and a 384-bit memory interface.
One may want to consider checking out the product page before deciding whether or not to buy this instead of an alternative.