Final Thoughts

Moving away from the overclocked AMD Radeon HD 7950 video card which we looked at earlier and checking out a reference clocked model, we get a better idea of the new model from AMD. We of course see performance lag behind on the reference clocked card when compared to the overclocked XFX model we looked at earlier. However, the most important thing to take away is that we come to the same kind of conclusion; at 2560 x 1600, the HD 7950 continues to struggle.

For the most part in the end performance is what we expected it to be. I think the biggest surprise came from the cooler and just how effective it was. Not only did it do a great job of keeping our GPU cool, but it also does this while running at an excellent noise level.

Really there's not a whole lot more that needs to be said about the HIS HD 7950. Overall the performance is strong and after testing the overclocked XFX version earlier, the numbers sit at where we'd expect.

The best thing to note about the HD 7950 is the fact that if you're going to be gaming at 2560 x 1600, it's going to struggle in most new games. Performance is good and sometimes it only falls just behind the 60 FPS mark, but it's consistent, unlike the HD 7970 which consistently tends to be on the other side of the 60 FPS number we aim for.

If you're going to be gaming on a 2560 x 1440 / 1600 screen, we'd recommend you throw the extra dollars at the AMD Radeon HD 7970. If you're on a 1920 x 1200 / 1080 or 1680 x 1050 screen, the HD 7950 is an awesome card for you and the associated $399 US price tag makes it a stand out option for a lot of people, especially those wanting to jump on the new HD 7900 series bandwagon.