PowerColor Radeon HD 7950 PCS+ review - Product Showcase

Product Showcase

Photo's then, below you can see the Radeon HD 7950, this is a 3GB model. We expect the product to retail for roughly 400 EUR or 450 USD in the initial launch phase, we hope price will level in a few weeks but that will depend on availability versus volume.

Above the PCS+ edition bundle. You will receive the card, Crossfire bridge and several converters next to the manual and drivers.

Overall a nice and blue/dark looking card is what you may expect from AMD. The 4.3 Billion transistor encounting 28nm Tahiti PRO based core is tied to a whopping 3GB memory.

The reference cards are clocked at an 800 MHz core frequency and the GDDR5 memory runs at 5 Gbps (effective data rate as GDDR5 has a quad data-rate, so effectively that quadruples it number). This PCS+ model however is factory clocked at 880 MHz. TUL left the memory clock at 5000 MHz, however you should not have a problem tweaking it towards a good 6000 MHz. The card weighs in at 676 Gram.

Here we can see the backside, the card will fit pretty much any chassis as it is 26cm in length. The backside of the PCB shows a non-complex design, that's typically a very good sign. This PCB definitely differs from the R7970 design and is a hint smaller. You can also see the heatpipes of the cooler a little better, four nice tick 8mm pipes run from the core towards aluminum fins on top, where two fans will blow the heat away.

If you look to the lower left, AMD allows you to opt for the multi-GPU road with Crossfire(X) as an option. You can pair two, three or even four cards in one PC and have them do a decent workout. Crossfire is setting the same cards up in multi-GPU mode, and CrossfireX is mixing different cards say 6950 and 7950 and set them up in Crossfire mode.

If you peek to the right of the Crossfire fingers on the photo you'll see a small switch, the 1 and 2 position are actually a Dual BIOS toggle switch. Setting 2 returns the card to factory default, setting 1 is an unprotected mode which allows you to overclock and tweak. So, mode two is your failsafe BIOS.

Connectivity wise the output connectors will vary per brand. But on this card we see four connectors supporting all high-resolution monitors. We get two display port connectors (mini), HDMI and a DVI connector. The cards will come with monitor connector dongles and adapters.