Final Thoughts
So “Bonaire” is here and we’ve had a chance to really test it over the last couple of days so what do we think? Since we see no major refresh coming from AMD till at least the end of the year if not later than that it is a good idea for them to refresh their current lineup, at least in the entry-level to mid-range. As of right now the HD 7790 sits comfortably between the HD 7850 and HD 7770. The card we tested today has 20% more shaders then a HD 7770 and the GPU clock is 7.5% higher. On top of that it has a 42% higher memory clock compared to the HD 7770.
Sapphire has done a great job on the OC Edition of this card. First as the name says this is the overlcocked edition of the card. That means you are going to have a 1075MHz core clock and your memory is going to be running at 1600MHz. On top of that Sapphire is calling this card Dual-X because of the cooling system. Sapphire’s Dual-X cooling system works quite well and our 15 minute run of FurMark only got the card up to 74C. And as we mentioned FurMark is not a true representation of gaming performance, but actually a testing that pushes the card much harder.
The card looks great as well with its black shroud, Sapphire logo’s and black PCB. It is really great to see more companies start using black PCB’s on their video cards. When it comes to connections you have two DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. Of course this card supports AMD’s Eyefinity 2.0 and CrossFireX.
Now all of the reference Radeon HD 7790’s you will see today have an MSRP of $149, but Sapphire’s Radeon HD 7790 OC Edition card has an MSRP of $159. For that $10 you are getting not only an overclocked card with better cooling but Saphire is also bundling BioShock Infinite with the card. So it is a pretty obvious choice what card to choose. This card also comes in less expensive than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti, which it is set to directly compete against. Overall ThinkComputers gives the Sapphire Radeon HD 7790 OC Edition Video Card a 10 out of 10 score and our Recommended Award.
Pros:
– Overclocked Edition
– Dual-X cooling
– Best performance and its price
– Looks great
– Easily overclockable
Cons:
– None that I found
