I haven’t been impressed with any graphic card for quite a while and I must say I am elated to have come by this model of HD 7790 graphic card from Sapphire.
The card retails at around RM 480. Do note that there are a few variants of Sapphire’s HD 7790 range. This one is the Dual-X variant with 1GB GDDR3 and dual fan cooler that’s quite silent.
The most striking feature about the card is the dual-fan heatsink. A sleek design with silver and black surface, a whole lot of lines with a modern touch.
Copper heatpipes on the cooler, seen through the openings of the heatsink chassis.
Only a single PCI-E power connector is required, HD 7790 has a reference TDP of 85w.
1 x HDMI (with 3D)
1 x DisplayPort 1.2
1 x Dual-Link DVI-D
1 x Dual-Link DVI-I
Full details at the Offical Product Page
The card comes pre-overclocked and out of curiosity, I did overclock it further and manage to get the core up to 1200Mhz. It doesn’t actually help much with performance; which is why I do not over clock graphics cards like how I used to.
Here’s the GPU-Z detail of the card.
More details at the Official Product Page
Test Setup
| Processor | Intel Core i5-2500K |
| RAM | Avexir Core Series 2x 4GB DDR3-1600 |
| Motherboard | MSI Z77A-GD45 |
| Cooler | Intel stock cooler |
| Monitor | 40″ LCD TV |
| Power Supply | Xigmatek NRP-PC602 600w |
| Casing | Sharkoon Tauron |
| Operating System | Windows 8 Pro 64bit |
| Driver | AMD Catalyst 12.101.2.1 (HD7790 dedicated driver) |
Benchmark
There’s a change in the benchmark system. The 2 new benchmarks used at goldfries.com are Resident Evil 6 and Just Cause 2. All the benchmark titles have numbers!!!
Bear in mind that the card is pre-overclocked, so I will state OC to refer to what it is and OC+ to refer to the added overclock (Core at 1200Mhz)
Metro 2033
| Card | 1080p (avg) | 720p (avg) |
| Sapphire HD 7790 OC | 38.0 | 68.5 |
| Sapphire HD 7790 OC+ | 39.5 | 71.0 |
| Sapphire HD 5870 Toxic | 41.5 | – |
Unigine Heaven 4.0
| Card | 1080p (avg) | 720p (avg) |
| Sapphire HD 7790 OC | 25 | 51.1 |
| Sapphire HD 7790 OC+ | 26 | 53.8 |
| Sapphire HD 5870 Toxic | 27.6 | – |
Resident Evil 6
| Card | 1080p (score) | 720p (score) |
| Sapphire HD 7790 OC | 5748 | 9441 |
| Sapphire HD 7790 OC+ | 6125 | 10033 |
Just Cause 2
| Scene | Card | 1080p (avg) | 720p (avg) |
| Dark Tower | Sapphire HD 7790 OC | 55.12 | 97.01 |
| Sapphire HD 7790 OC+ | 57.34 | 101.32 | |
| Desert Sunrise | Sapphire HD 7790 OC | 75.05 | 123.97 |
| Sapphire HD 7790 OC+ | 78.89 | 131.30 | |
| Concrete Jungle | Sapphire HD 7790 OC | 46.53 | 71.22 |
| Sapphire HD 7790 OC+ | 47.84 | 100.69 |
Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11.0
AMD cards work with this software, so I decided to pit the HD 7790 against the Intel Core i5-2500K
| Card | Time Taken (Seconds) |
| Sapphire HD 7790 OC | 138 |
| Intel Core i5-2500K | 148 |
Temperature
Furmark Burn-in Test was used to stress the card. Fan settings are at Auto. Room set to ~25c.
On idle, the fan runs at 21% and temperature of the card was at 36c.
Below is the full load details.
| Card | Idle(°C) | Load (°C) |
| Sapphire HD 7790 OC | 36 | 61 |
Noise Level
I’ll let the video do the talking
Verdict
What I am most impressed about this graphic card is the combination of price, performance and cooling. It’s running under 100w and temperature hovers around 70c even when the fan is only going at 40% speed in a warm room.
Worth shelling out a wee bit more $$$ to get this one over the HD 7770 cards. You can’t go wrong with any of these HD 77×0 series cards anyway.
