XFX FX-795A-TDBC Pro Reviews

The XFX Radeon HD 7950 Black Edition Video Card (FX-795A-TDBC) is a competitive video card. The Ghost Thermal Technology and Double Dissipation created cool operating temperatures and allowed us to reach a reputable overclock. It beat not only the AMD Radeon HD 6970, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580, but rivaled a stock Radeon HD 7970 with its Out-of-Box performance. We achieved a very high stable overclock which directly resulted in more performance, allowed us to enable more graphics options, and fine tuned performance in the games we had already maxed settings in. The overclock also boosted performance well beyond that of a stock Radeon HD 7970. The price seems extremely high for us. It did perform better than the GeForce GTX 580 Out-of-Box, but did not destroy it in performance as we would have wanted for its current price point. To pay $50 more and not see the performance gap we expected was discouraging. On the other hand, it's $50 dollars less than a Radeon HD 7970 which it matched closely with the factory overclock.

XFX takes on the potent Radeon HD 7950 3GB GPU and gives it a Black Edition DD makeover for its best-in-class card. Clocked in at over 10 per cent higher than the reference card and with performance that accurately mirrors such a frequency increase, the R7950 bridges the two AMD Tahiti architectures nicely. Cool and quiet with the shipping BIOS, XFX also makes available a more-aggressive fan profile for users who wish to clock their cards further. And in line with the disarming potential shown by the reference card, XFX's scales way, way above even the pre-overclocked settings, making it considerably quicker than most Radeon HD 7970s. Really, the question you need to ask yourself is whether the £65 extra over a basic card is worth it. In return for handing over a 10 per cent price premium you receive higher guaranteed speeds and, in our opinion, a better cooler.

With all of that being said, the HD 7950 offers tremendous performance potential if you chose to overclock it. At stock speeds it offers predictable performance that is well ahead of previous generation parts and in just about every game ahead of NVIDIA's current high end parts. As an upgrade, the current pricing puts it in line with the GTX 580 which it of course beats hands down. Add in Eyefinity capabilities with a single card and the HD 7950 is a card that is a perfect upgrade path for those looking for top end performance but have a hard time shelling out $600 for the top line product. Even just less than $500 the HD 7950 is not a value proposition. Performance at stock and overclocked speeds make the XFX Black Edition Double Dissipation and Sapphire Overclocked Edition HD 7950 video card as potent upgrades to enjoy the latest games. Good looks, Custom cooling and PCB, Awesome performance, and more are good enough reasons to move to the HD 7900 series from Sapphire or XFX.

Although a $500 graphics card is still expensive by any measure, the XFX R7950 Black Edition Double Dissipation represents a better value than its R7970 big brother and a much better value than any other existing high-end video card-- just check the "$ per FPS" charts on each benchmark! Average Newegg prices for the NVIDIA GTX 580 are still in the $479-and-up range, and that's with the reference standard of 1.5GB of memory. The 3GB cards go for $550 or more. With AMD's new driver, the performance delta betwee the GTX 580 and the Tahiti cards grows even wider, and since the Fermi drivers are very mature now, I doubt we'll see any significant improvements on that score; we'll have to wait for the forthcoming Kepler cards to see NVIDIA's answer. In the meantime, AMD's Tahiti-based cards set new standards for performance and efficiency. The first run of AMD's 7970-based video cards sold out virtually instantly and they remain unavailable as of the time of this writing. Considering that the 7950 represents only slightly less performance for a lot less money, you should grab one of these quickly if you want one.

XFX Radeon HD 7950 Black Edition is faster than any single GPU graphics card launched last year, faster than the HD 6970, and faster than GTX 580. XFX helped the card along by overclocking the GPU by 100MHz, which means that it runs at 900MHz. Gaming performance will not be an issue, although utilizing full potential of the card will require gaming at 1920x1080 and higher. Apart from the great performance, our today’s Black Edition looks great and the finishing touches are clear for all to see. AMD’s Tahiti core packs good overclocking potential, which is obvious considering the number of overclocked cards, be they 7950 or 7970. XFX also offers HD 7970 Black Edition which runs at 1GHz. We easily overclocked the Radeon HD 7950 Black Edition’s GPU by additional 105MHz. The HD 7950 Black Edition’s cooler is called Double Dissipation, which basically means it has two fans. XFX made a good BIOS at the last moment so the card runs quietly even under load. Temperatures are great, even though the card runs higher clock speeds. The card comes with 3GB of memory, just like on HD 7970 cards. XFX Radeon HD 7950 Black Edition Double Dissipation will set you back about $499, which is some $50 lower than the suggested HD 7970 pricing or $50 more than the HD 7950 with reference clocks and lesser cooler.

XFX have really raised the bar in terms of both esthetics and cooling performance. Other vendors are going to very hard pressed to be able to produce a card that can compete with this one. There really isn’t any better choice right now for an overclocked version of this card. XFX build quality and selected materials are also top notch. This card is built for performance, but it’s also built to last. It’s true that they probably could have pushed the overclock on this card a little further, particularly when you look at the temperatures that we observed during our testing. Our testing was all done on an open-air test bench and therefore isn’t the most ideal way to keep a video card cool. In a tower with good air-flow though, this shouldn’t be a problem. Here at Motherboards.Org, this card is definitely worth of our Editor’s Choice Award. This card comes to market at about $470.00 US.

The XFX HD 7950 Black Edition Double Dissipation has literally everything someone could possibly want in a graphics card. It is more than able to play any game on the market at high detail settings, retains much of the reference version’s frugal power needs, overclocks to some impressive levels and comes with a lifetime warranty. The only thing that may hold some people back is its $500 asking price but in our opinion this HD 7950 is worth every penny.