XFX Radeon HD R7790 Video Card

Full Disclosure: XFX provided the product sample used in this article.

The PC graphics card industry has been somewhat turned on its head in 2013. As consumers, we've grown accustomed to the annual launches of a new and improved series of GPUs from both sides of the competition. The Radeon HD line has followed this pattern for a while now. With AMD's announcement of the 8000M series plans at the end of 2012, everything seemed to be progressing normally. Throughout Q1, 2013, however, we have been kept waiting for a retail desktop GPU release. With confusing rhetoric in their press releases, it almost appeared as though AMD had disappeared completely from the desktop market this year.

As it turns out, AMD's graphics plans seem to have taken an unexpected turn. Rather than seeing 8000 series GPUs, we are hearing from AMD that their existing line of 7000 series GPUs are stable through 2013. AMD has ensured consumers that this does not mean they won't be releasing any new GPUs in 2013 and the first proof we have of that is the release of Radeon HD 7790. Manufacturing partners are now releasing their versions of the Radeon HD 7790 and Benchmark Reviews has received a sample of the XFX Radeon HD R7790 video card for testing. This article is dedicated discovering what XFX has done with the latest Radeon HD 7000 series GPU, the 7790.

The Radeon HD 7790 is codenamed Bonaire and is the first GPU release from AMD in 2013 for the retail desktop market. The Radeon HD 7790 fills an important performance gap between the HD 7770, known as Cape Verde, and the HD 7850, known as Pitcairn. In fact, it fits into a slot previously only occupied by NVIDIA's GTX 650 Ti. That gap sits between $110 and $180, roughly. On a performance level, the gap between the Radeon HD 7770 and the 7850 is just as large, with the HD 7850 doubling nearly every spec in the HD 7770.

In the Radeon HD 7790, the Bonaire GPU comes fully enabled. This parts a little with conventional die usage, where we generally see an XX50 and an XX70 using the same part but with some functionality disabled on the lower card. What the HD 7790 gives us is 14 CUs for a total of 896 stream processors and 56 texture units. Those numbers look just right for the product's placement. Interestingly enough, though, Bonaire has twice the geometry engines and command processors as Cape Verde, allowing for two primitives per clock over one in Cape Verde. This is on par with Pitcairn and Tahiti. Of course, the ROPs, memory bus, and clock speed all mimic Cape Verde at 16, 128-bit and 1GHz respectively. The memory clock on the HD 7790 has also been increased to 6GHz, higher than both Cape Verde and Pitcairn. Finally, because 28nm Bonaire die is slightly larger than Cape Verde, it naturally comes with higher power consumption. AMD puts the typical board power at 85W for the reference design.

Closer Look: XFX R7790

The XFX Radeon HD R7790 Black Edition video card comes packaged in a box that stays true to its name; nice and black. Besides an XFX logo, there really isn't any graphic to speak of on the box. In a lot of cases, you'll find scantily clad game characters or fast-looking cars on video card boxes. XFX shies away from that trend with the Radeon HD R7790, paying homage to the special features of the video card instead. From the front of box, you'll discover a little about what makes the R7790 Black Edition unique, including GPU Edging, Double Dissipation, and Ghost Thermal Technology. We'll talk about exactly what those features entail a little later on in this article.

The backside of the Radeon HD R7790 Black Edition video card box shows off more about the features you can find on the card and bundled in the box. There is a blurb about GCN architecture, DURATEC components, Power Tune 2, and the 4K readiness of the R7790. I'll present the details about most of that in the detailed features section, but the fact that the Radeon HD R7790 is 4K ready really means nothing at this point. If you can afford a 4K monitor, you could probably fork over a little more for your video card and get something more powerful than the 7790.

Venturing inside the box of the XFX Radeon HD R7790 Black Edition introduces us to the accessories that come bundled along. There isn't much to look at here, though. You have the driver and utility disc, the quick installation guide, a catalog of other XFX products, and a couple of little fliers warning you about plugging stuff into the right places. My personal favorites are the little toys that are starting to come with video cards, motherboards, and other gaming-centric components recently. The XFX Radeon HD R7790 also comes with a "Do Not Disturb" door handle sign and a metal, black edition decal thingy with adhesive on the back. I wanted to stick it to my front door, but my wife vetoed that idea. She's just not a true gamer. And speaking of gamers, AMD's "Never Settle" bundling offer ensures that if you buy an XFX Radeon HD R7790 from an authorized retailer, you will get a download code for BioShock Infinite. I have to say that I was a little disappointed that a code didn't accidently find its way into the review sample box.

Taking a look at the card itself, you can see that the XFX Radeon HD R7790 Black Edition keeps the same look, albeit shrunk a little, as the other XFX Radeon Black Edition video cards. XFX uses the same dual-fan cooler that includes a HydroCell vapor chamber and two Duratec IP-5X dust-free fans. The IP-5X fans claim to have a dust free zone that protects the bearings from gathering any dust at all.

The XFX R7790 uses two proprietary technologies to keep the components cool. If you are familiar with XFX Double D or Black Edition video cards, the Double Dissipation and Ghost Thermal Technologies are nothing new to you. The Double Dissipation Technology utilizes the two IP-5X fans to push air over the critical areas of the PCB, ensuring that the heatsink stays cool as well as the areas not covered by a heatsink.

The shroud of the XFX Radeon HD R7790 is called a floating cover as part of the Ghost Thermal technology that increases venting and promotes airflow around the card. The air is pushed out of the top and bottom of the R7790, as well as the sides, unlike many card designs that force air only out of the I/O end of the card.

Looking at the top of the XFX Radeon HD R7790 you can see how the shroud is lifted slightly off the PCB, leaving a couple of slits on either side of the support brace where air can be pushed out.

From the bottom you can see how the shroud is lifted up a little as well. The concept is nice, but I would be concerned that too much free space around the card would allow for eddies in the air current, stagnating warm air in some spots. With the shroud down lower and less space around the card, the air pressure alone forces constant movement of the hot air out. As long as the twin IP-5X fans blow strongly enough to avoid any dead spots, this method does provide for easier escape of the hot air and better circulation.

The I/O panel on the XFX Radeon R7790 offers the standard setup with two DVI ports, and HDMI port and a DisplayPort. The R7790 supports HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2. According to the specifications, one of the DVI ports is dual-link DVI-I. However, the specifications also state that the R7790 supports four monitors in Eyefinity. I wasn't able to test that out, mainly because I don't have a single monitor that supports DisplayPort.

Finally, the XFX Radeon HD R7790, like all 7790 cards, uses a single 6-pin power connector to add to the overall power draw of the card. This essentially limits the Radeon HD 7790 to a total maximum power consumption of 150W; 75W from the PCI-e slot and 75W from the 6-pin connector. This could be the deciding factor between the HD 7790 and an HD 7850, which uses two 6-pin connectors and can consume up to 225W of power.

Since this is a Black Edition card, XFX certainly couldn't leave the clockspeeds alone either. The XFX Radeon HD R7790 comes with a GPU clockspeed of 1075MHz and a memory clockspeed of 1600MHz (6.4GHz effective clockspeed).

A detailed listing of all of the features and specifications for the XFX Radeon HD R7790 can be found at XFXforce.com .

Testing & Results

Testing Methodology

The Microsoft DirectX-11 graphics API is native to the Microsoft Windows 7 Operating System, and will be the primary OS for our test platform. DX11 is also available as a Microsoft Update for the Windows Vista OS, so our test results apply to both versions of the operating system. All of the tests in this review were run with DX11 graphics.

While a lot of gamers use the 1680x1050 desktop resolution, 1920x1080 is rapidly becoming the most popular. Because it is the more demanding of the two, I ran all of my tests at a resolution of 1920x1080. You can expect slightly better frame rates if you are using 1680x1050, but the difference probably won't be dramatic. The only exception is 3DMark 11, which I tested using performance presets. Those presets use a resolution of 1280x720.

I used a combination of synthetic and video game benchmark tests in this article to illustrate relative performance among graphics solutions. Our benchmark frame rate results are not intended to represent real-world graphics performance, as this experience would change based on supporting hardware and the perception of individuals playing the video game.

Test System

• Motherboard: Biostar Hi-Fi Z77X Motherboard
• Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge CPU 3.3GHz
• System Memory: 16GB (4 4GB DIMMs) Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 (9-9-9-24)
• Disk Drive: OCZ Vertex4 128GB
• PSU: Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W 80-Plus Certified
• Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

DirectX-11 Benchmark Applications

• Assassin's Creed III
  • Very high textures, high shadows, tesselation, SSAO, advanced shadow sampling, 4x AA, 16x AF
• 3DMark11
  • "Performance" settings (1280x720)
• Hitman: Absolution
  • Tests A and B, 4xMSAA, all other settings "High"
• Far Cry 3
  • Performance Presets
• Unigine Heaven Benchmark 3.0
  • Extreme tesselation, high shaders, 4xAF, 8xAA

Assassin's Creed III

Assassin's Creed III is based on the AnvilNext engine and uses Havok CPU physics. This makes it a perfect game to test using both NVIDIA and AMD graphics cards, as long as your CPU doesn't bottleneck performance at all. Assassin's Creed III is very visually intensive and utilizes DX 11 features, especially tesselation, to provide an extremely realistic experience. Wood and clothing grains are extenuated and movement and environment look more natural than ever.

Assassin's Creed III is the latest in the Assassin's Creed line and follows Desmond Miles as he steps into the memories of his ancestors. This time, Miles is transported to early American history as his native American ancestor, Connor, battles his way through both sides of the American Revolutionary War. The area covered in the game is enormous and the landscape and features are very detailed.

• Assassin's Creed III
  • High Settings

Next up is the 3DMark 11 Benchmark.

3DMark11

3DMark11 is Futuremark's latest iteration of the video card software benchmark suite, building on the features of 3DMark Vantage and 3DMark 06 as well as earlier version. It's optimized and intended for testing DirectX-11 capable hardware running under Windows Vista or Windows 7.

• 3DMark11
  • "Performance" settings, 1280x720 resolution

    

The Hitman: Absolution results are next.

Hitman: Absolution

Based on the Square Enix Glacier 2 engine, newly revamped to support DX11, Hitman: Absolution is another sequel that showcases just how far graphics have come while hinting where they are headed. In Hitman: Absolution, Agent 47 fights back against former allies turned against him. Through modern urban and rural landscapes, our hero glides fluidly and seamlessly. Character and environmental rendering are very detailed and DX11 features abound.

• Hitman Absolution
  • 4X AA, High Settings

The next benchmark in our suite is Far Cry 3.

Far Cry 3

Far Cry 3 is the next installation in the Far Cry series which pits players against a tropical landscape and hostile indigenous forces. After escaping from ruthless kidnappers, the player is sent on a mission to avenge his brother's death and find and rescue the remaining members of his initial party. With DX 11 optimization, Far Cry 3 uses the Dunia engine to render the island and village landscapes in stunning detail. One of the most difficult jobs of any graphics engine is to render water, and Far Cry 3 has plenty of that.

• Far Cry 3
  
  • High Settings, DX11, 4xAA, 4xAF

Unigine Heaven 3.0 is the next benchmark.

Unigine Heaven 3.0

The Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark is a free publicly available tool that grants the power to unleash the graphics capabilities in DirectX-11 for Windows 7 or updated Vista Operating Systems. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode, emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

The distinguishing feature in the Unigine Heaven benchmark is a hardware tessellation that is a scalable technology aimed for automatic subdivision of polygons into smaller and finer pieces, so that developers can gain a more detailed look of their games almost free of charge in terms of performance. Thanks to this procedure, the elaboration of the rendered image finally approaches the boundary of veridical visual perception: the virtual reality transcends conjured by your hand. The Heaven benchmark excels at providing the following key features:

• Native support of OpenGL, DirectX 9, DirectX-10 and DirectX-11
• Comprehensive use of tessellation technology
• Advanced SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion)
• Volumetric cumulonimbus clouds generated by a physically accurate algorithm
• Dynamic simulation of changing environment with high physical fidelity
• Interactive experience with fly/walk-through modes
• ATI Eyefinity support

• Unigine Heaven 3.0
  • High Shaders, Extreme tessellation,8xAA, 4xAF

XFX R7790 Temperatures

We're at the start of a transition: for years the PC industry has produced faster and more powerful CPUs and GPUs, which always came with ever-higher power draws. But as the industry moves to smaller and smaller fabrication processes, we're seeing power draws drop, and clever designs save even more power. Users benefit from GPUs that disable large portions of their circuitry when idle, leading to dramatically lower power draws and very cool idle temperatures. At the other end of the scale, reduced power at the higher end means smaller coolers, quieter fans, and less heat to worry about dissipating.

At the start of this test, I measure the idle temperature of the card with the card sitting at the Windows desktop, using the GPU-Z utility. Next, I start FurMark's stress test and let it run until the temperature curve flattens and the temperature has not varied more than 1 degree in the last five minutes.

FurMark does two things extremely well: drive the thermal output of any graphics processor higher than applications of video games realistically could, and it does so with consistency every time. FurMark works great for testing the stability of a GPU as the temperature rises to the highest possible output. The temperatures discussed below are absolute maximum values, and not representative of real-world performance.

Keep in mind that my testbench is open to the air, and that affects the results by a lot. Still, the Cyclone II thermal design seems to do an outstanding job of keeping the N650 Ti Power Edition very cool.

Ambient Temperature	20C
XFX R7790 Idle Temperature	22C
XFX R7790 Load Temperature	57C

VGA Power Consumption

The new generation of video cards-- AMD's Southern Islands and NVIDIA's Kepler-- are certainly fast, but their new power saving features are almost as impressive. The move to a smaller process has helped, but both products benefit from a variety of power-saving techniques, including aggressively underclocking and undervolting themselves in low demand scenarios, as well as turning off unused portions of the card. Both companies also use other, proprietary methods to keep power usage low.

To measure isolated video card power consumption, Benchmark Reviews uses the Kill-A-Watt EZ (model P4460) power meter made by P3 International. A baseline test is taken without a video card installed inside our test computer system, which is allowed to boot into Windows 7 and rest idle at the login screen before power consumption is recorded. Once the baseline reading has been taken, the graphics card is installed and the system is again booted into Windows and left idle at the login screen. Another power reading is taken when the display sleeps, and then I measure the power under a heavy gaming load. Our final loaded power consumption reading is taken with the video card running a stress test using FurMark.

Below is a chart with the system totals displayed in watts for each specified test product:

Situation	Power
Windows login, no video card	54 watts
Windows login, video card	62 watts
Windows desktop	63 watts
Windows desktop, display sleep	60 watts
Gaming load	144 watts
FurMark load	197 watts

Based on the login situation, it looks like idle power consumption for the XFX R7790 video card is extremely low, around 8 watts. Considering that full system performance under FurMark doesn't even pull 200 watts of power, I doubt that the R7790 actually has much need for that extra 6-pin input. It will probably operate at under 75 watts of power draw under nearly any circumstances. It is definitely good to have the extra power there if it is needed, though.

XFX Radeon HD R7790 Conclusion

IMPORTANT: Although the rating and final score mentioned in this conclusion are made to be as objective as possible, please be advised that every author perceives these factors differently at various points in time. While we each do our best to ensure that all aspects of the product are considered, there are often times unforeseen market conditions and manufacturer changes which occur after publication that could render our rating obsolete. Please do not base any purchase solely on our conclusion, as it represents our product rating specifically for the product tested, which may differ from future versions. Benchmark Reviews begins our conclusion with a short summary for each of the areas that we rate.

The XFX Radeon HD R7790 performed exactly where it was supposed to. Overclocked from the factory, the R7790 actually performed very close to a stock Radeon HD 7850. Since the Radeon HD 7790 was intended to fill the gap between the 7770 and the 7850, this is a great place to be. The XFX R7790 should also be a very cool running video card, given the XFX proprietary technologies that went into the making of the R7790. Since I didn't have another 7790 to test it against, I can't be certain that it isn't just the efficiency of the chip itself, but the R7790 did perform outstandingly in terms of thermal dissipation, being one of the coolest running cards that I have tested.

In terms of appearance, I find the XFX Radeon HD 7790 to be visually appealing, but not overly so. XFX has done a good job of visually branding their Black Edition video cards. I have an XFX Black Edition R7970, R7950, and R7870. All of them share the coloring scheme and appearance of the R7790. I have no doubt that if I were to see an XFX Black Edition video card, I would know what it was. I would certainly be able to pick out which of the XFX cards were Black Edition from the appearance. While this is certainly good from a branding perspective, I don't think that the blocky R7790 is one of my favorite video cards to look at. I think there are others with sloping, curvaceous figures that appeal to me more; ASUS and MSI cards both come to mind.

The quality of construction on the XFX Radeon HD R7790 is top notch. It seems like all of the big names in GPUs, or other gaming and enthusiast level components, tend to strive for high quality, well-constructed devices. XFX uses their Duratec branded, professional grade components to build their video cards, and the XFX R7790 was able to withstand torturous conditions without failing. The conditions we tested the R7790 in are unlikely to be replicated during normal use, but if you are an overclocker at heart, or really push your components to the limit, you can rest assured that the R7790 can go there.

The features that set the XFX Radeon HD R7790 apart from the competition really come in the form of the cooling features and the factory overclock. All of the same support for Eyefinity, Open CL 1.2, DirectComputer, OpenGL, GCN, and the rest that you will find on any other Radeon HD 7790 is, of course, present. But what you get in addition is the 1075 MHz clock speed, the double dissipation, and ghost thermal technology that makes this card fly and stay cool all at the same time. These features, along with the cool Do Not Disturb sign and trinket that come in the box, set the XFX Radeon HD R7790 above the average card. It doesn't, in my opinion, take it to the next level, however. With MSI cards, you get utilities such as Kombuster and Afterburner for stressing and overclocking the card. Any additional features that can set you apart from the rest are really nice to have. The R7790 is above average, but not at the top of the pack.

The XFX Radeon HD R7790 is being sold for $139.99 (Amazon | Newegg), and is pictured with what must have been a concept of the card with a single fan. That's not actually what the card looks like. $149.99 is exactly where it should be priced, and where most Radeon HD 7790 video cards sit. No surprises here, and that is unfortunate. It puts the R7790 within about $15 of on-sale 7850s. Since the stock 7850 performs a little better, the $15 could arguably be worth it. However, right now AMD's Never Settle bundles are giving away three video games with Radeon HD 7850 cards and only two games with Radeon HD 7790 cards. Better performance and an extra free $30-$60 game like Bioshock, Crysis 3, or Tomb Raider more than justifies the extra $15 it will cost for a 7850.

Overall, I think that the XFX Radeon HD R7790 is a good deal for a video card somewhere between entry level and mid-range. The fact is you'll have to turn down the settings on any of the more demanding titles to get playable frame rates. For just a little more investment, you can pull a few more FPS and get an extra free game. The only "wow" that I got from the R7790 was the cooling. I was very impressed. The cooling system appears to have worked exactly as advertised and I was impressed by that. Other than that, however, nothing about this card jumped out at me. Performance across HD 7790s is likely to be close to the same based on the clock speed and RAM, so simply tuning a card isn't enough anymore. A manufacturer really has to woo the gamer or enthusiast with something extra features to make their specific component stand out. Give me a tuning utility or some in-game recording software. Heck, bundle FRAPS or GPU-Z with your logo on it to give me a warm fuzzy. I need something. I did notice that the XFXforce.com website had a Black Edition Members section to it, but it looks like there is nothing there yet. It tells you to register using the form below, but there is no form. Something like that would be a great feature to lure us in. As it is, I can only give the R7790 exactly what it deserves, a good, slightly-higher-than-average score.

Pros:

+ Excellent Cooling Performance
+ Nearly catches the 7850 in some benchmarks

+ Dust Free Fans
+ Support for up to 4 monitors in Eyefinity

Cons:

- Average Looks
- No real special features or perks

Ratings:

• Performance: 8.00
• Appearance: 7.50
• Construction: 9.00
• Functionality: 8.50
• Value: 7.75

Final Score: 8.15 out of 10.

Benchmark Reviews invites you to leave constructive feedback below, or ask questions in our Discussion Forum.

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