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August 20th, 2012

AMD Dropping Prices on HD 7850, HD 7870 and HD 7950 Cards

AMD Dropping Prices on HD 7850, HD 7870 and HD 7950 Cards radeon 7950
According to KitGuru, AMD will introduce a new prices for their Radeon HD 7800 Series and HD 7950 graphics card.

After the successful launch of NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 660 Ti, AMD is planning to make their cards even more competitive. Majority of the reviews gave quite a solid overview of the mid-range segment. While the Radeon HD 7950 is a better solution for high-resolution gaming, the GTX 660 Ti provides acceptable framerate with 1920×1080, but it actually depends on which games you play.

But let’s get back to the topic. The new prices should look like this:

  • 1GB 7850 down $40 to $190
  • 2GB 7850 down $40 to $210
  • 2GB 7870 down $50 to $250
  • 3GB 7950 down $30 to $320

The HD 7850 will receive $40 lower price on both models (1 and 2GB). The highest drop is for HD 7870, which is quite interesting, while GTX 660 Ti is not really a counterpart for it. But it was possibly dictated by a new card coming from NVIDIA — GeForce GTX 660 non-Ti (expected in September). Also HD 7950 will now be sold for $320. This is almost the same price as for GTX 660 Ti, meaning that Radeon should now sell better, as it also received a Boost Clock few days ago.

These are the 10-20% price drops, which are definitely make mid-range cards more attractive. I’m not sure if the new prices will concern the cards already on the market or the new models with PowerTune Boost feature.

Have you guys seen a 2GB version of HD 7950? The source mentions such model, but I have never heard of it (even googled to be sure – still nothing).

It’s worth to mention that EVGA GTX 660 Ti is already available for €280 in Europe, which is €30 less than the cheapest HD 7950.

Anyway here’s a performance to price chart prepared by 3Dcenter.org. Both GTX 660 Ti and HD 7950 have almost identical index, it’s up to you to decide which card fits your needs better.

AMD Dropping Prices on HD 7850, HD 7870 and HD 7950 Cards radeon 7950

Thanks Skr13 for the tip

  • skr13

    Ok, im always ready to share my updates…
    I think if with the new theme of Videocardz, will be possible to exist a specific zone to community members share some interresting news/updates.
    That 7950 2Gb sure is strange!
    The cheapest 7950 is now VTX3D 7950 for 270 EUR :)
    http://www.pixmania.de/de/de/12623111/art/vtx3d/radeon-hd-7950-x-edition.html In Portugal cost more 10EUR.

  • http://videocardz.com/ VideoCardz.com

    That means I need to add Forums. It’s a lot of work to set it up.
    I’m not sure which premium script is the best, any suggestions?

  • Exeed

    Is there any word on when these price changes may come into effect? I was going to buy the GTX 660ti, but with such a small price difference, I might just go for the 7950 instead (that 192 bit bus bothers me). Though I don’t know if it’ll make a difference, since my monitor can only handle up to 1080.

  • skr13

    I don´t understand much about websites management/script, but i do this on paint.
    Disqus is not best option to share, but for a start is ok.

  • pownwarrior

    i’ve never seen an index like this one that is really usefull

  • BestJinjo

    Competition FTW! Love it.

    BTW, HD7850 has been available for $210-220 in the US/Canada.
    HD7950 3GB was going for $320-330 for at least 1.5 months in both US and Canada.

    This is just more of an official confirmation for the rest of the world I guess.

    I told you guys that the direct competitor for the 660Ti will be HD7950 for the next foreseeable Quarter if not longer.

    Not surprisingly, HD6850/6870 continue to offer the most value per $ for budget gamers. Great and power efficient solutions, followed closely by HD7770 and GTX560.

  • http://videocardz.com/ VideoCardz.com

    I would go with GTX 660 Ti then, but some non-reference model obviously.
    No word when those prices will be official.

  • http://videocardz.com/ VideoCardz.com

    Well for me that’s like 1 minute to do, we can start with this. Thanks for idea.

  • BestJinjo

    If you plan on overclocking, HD7950 will surpass HD7970/GTX680. If you don’t want to overclock, 660Ti still appears to be cheaper in Europe. IF you do get an HD7950, *make sure* to get an after-market version. I strongly recommend the MSI TwinFrozr 3 as it has the most binned 7950 chips, 7970 PCB and 6+8 pin power connector which allows it to hit 1100-1200mhz on 1.175V!

  • BestJinjo

    Do you want the traffic that you’d get from setting up a forum though? I mean it will probably bring new users and put a strain on your bandwidth, but then you might increase your revenue from ad clicks :)

    You have enough here with a little bit of push to make this a premium VGA spot for the Internet. I don’t know anywhere else where there is so much info on GPUs.

    http://www.GPUreview.com maybe another competitor.

  • AMD >< nVIDIA

    A small forum for discussions is a eggxelent choice, for now. But still, i will cmt with disqus at the main page. I really like this site since it is all about VGA, nothing else. And the look of it is nice and user-friendly. Keep up the good qorkk admin. :D

  • BestJinjo

    NV bundles $60 Borderlands 2. That’s a sweet deal. The MSI Power Edition 660Ti looks great, or the Gigabyte 660Ti with that liftable cooling bracket that lets you clean the dust easily!

    The Zotac 660Ti AMP! looks cute too:
    http://techreport.com/articles.x/23419

  • Vincent C.

    What’s the different between Asus GTX 660 Ti DCUIIO and DCUIITOP ?? Better fan and cooling?

  • http://videocardz.com/ VideoCardz.com

    I’m working on similar page (comparison between GPUs, but don’t expect it any time soon). :)

    Their news section is quite slow (it’s not their hobby I guess). The only thing I like about it are those overclocking round ups.

    The traffic is not a problem, as currently it’s eating about 2% of the bandwidth.

  • http://videocardz.com/ VideoCardz.com

    Well to be honest, ZOTAC’s design is not my favourite.
    I have never played this game and but I would surely not buy a card only because it has a game. Maybe because I know too much about them.

  • http://videocardz.com/ VideoCardz.com

    Higher clocks with TOP model.

  • tbschen

    Yup, 3DCenter is a really great site (for germans), especially since it averages the performance from various reviews (we all know that there are pro-AMD and pro-Nvidia sites).

  • skr13

    AMD 7000 problems:
    http://forum.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=364498

    “- black screen with 100 percent fan and sound freeze in various games.
    - 2D/3D clock switching in game causing stutter, crash, and blue screens
    - HDMI audio dropouts (card is connected to Harman Kardon AVR 3600, and audio drops out for 2-3 seconds every few minutes with 12.3-12.8, including betas.
    - artifacting and slow down in older games such as RTCW.”

    AMD price drop are appealing to me, but im afraid of getting this problems again…

  • skr13

    UPDATE: Not really an update, but interesting info.
    http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/56220-powercolor-hd-7950-3gb-boost-state-review.html
    More 10% power consumption than 7950, to give about 5% performance increase.
    1.25V is too much voltage, for such “middle” OC.

  • LedHed

    AnAndTech: “For this review we’re going to include both the 7950 and 7950B in our
    results. We’re not at all happy with how AMD is handling this – it’s the
    kind of slimy thing that has already gotten NVIDIA in trouble in the past
    – and while we don’t want to reward such actions it would be remiss of
    us not to include it since it is a new reference part. And if AMD’s
    credibility is worth anything it will be on the shelves tomorrow anyhow.”

  • BestJinjo

    Yes, but as I mentioned before there are 2 types of HD7950 cards. This is why you have to do your research or ask around at places like this one:

    1) Crappy binned HD7950 “B” chips. These need 1.20-1.25V to hit 925mhz because they are ASIC 50-60%. Usually left for reference designs. These are your bottom of the barrel HD7950 versions. Stay FAR away.

    2) Overclocking binned HD7950 chips. These ship with 0.995-1.07V for 880-900mhz clocks because they are ASIC 80-90%. These are reserved for premium AIBs, including MSI TwinFrozr III 7950, Sapphire Vapor-X, Gigabyte Windforce 3X.

    Comparing 3 MSI cards for fairness.

    MSI Power Edition GTX670 = 145W at load:
    http://www.guru3d.com/imageview.php?image=40695

    MSI TwinFrozr III 7950 880mhz = 142W at load:
    http://www.guru3d.com/imageview.php?image=36567

    MSI Power Edition GTX660Ti = 134W at load:
    http://www.guru3d.com/imageview.php?image=41801

    And now the performance comparison.

    MSI Power Edition GTX660Ti 1313mhz Crysis 2 1080P Ultra = 60 fps

    http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-geforce-gtx-660-ti-power-editon-oc-review/26

    MSI Power Edition GTX670 1300mhz Crysis 2 1080P Ultra = 69 fps
    http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-geforce-gtx-670-power-edition-oc-review/24

    MSI TwinFrozr III 7950 1167mhz Crysis 2 1080P Ultra = 72 fps

    http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-radeon-hd-7950-twin-frozer-iii-review/24

    I keep telling you guys stop paying attention to reference HD7950 cards and get a guaranteed binned MSI TwinFrozr III HD7950 with 6+8-pin power connector, built on an HD7970 PCB. 1100-1150mhz overclocks on 1.175V are guaranteed. I promise. There is a thread on another forum and not a single person who bought this card got less than 1100mhz on 1.175V so far.

    Either way, AMD dropped the ball on marketing this time. They should have lowered prices before GTX660Ti launch and they should have allowed AIBs more freedom to come up with factory preoverclocked 7950s way way earlier. AIBs are starting to ship more after-market HD7950 such as Vapor-X but they are pricing them way too high to be a direct GTX660Ti competitor right now.

  • BestJinjo

    Here is a stock MSI TwinFrozr III 7950 880mhz vs. MSI Power Edition GTX660Ti:
    http://techreport.com/r.x/geforce-gtx-660ti/value-fps.gif

  • toggleSwitch

    Only the EVGA card comes with BL2. MSI would be the best bet if you like to overclock, as well as the new version of Twin Frozr on it that runs the fans backwards for a little bit when you boot up to reduce the dust build up. That and MSI cards always look sleek.

  • BestJinjo

    Price drops are already showing up in the US.

    HD7850 2GB for $190 on Newegg:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102998&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10440897&PID=3332167&SID=u00000687

    HD7850 2GB OC for $200 on Newegg:
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102999

    Loving this competition. Thank you GTX660Ti ;)

  • tbschen

    Yes it is, 3Dcenter is a great site, at least for germans.
    The scores are averaged results from big computer sites, which makes the results more honest and reduces the impact of biased websites.

  • http://videocardz.com/ VideoCardz.com

    This should happen few months ago :)

  • skr13

    I don´t need to do any research, the article that i post is true, and AMD want to sell all 7950 left stock to replace with 7950B, and of course that is not good.
    The possible situation is some AIBs decrease reference high voltage(1.25), to keep power consuption lower and temps.
    Those 7950 with 7970 PCB, are great, but with announced replace of 7950, for 7950B, don´t know how is going to be.
    Besides that MSI TF 3 cost 350EUR….is a steal.
    In my opinion AMD shouldn´t release 7970GHZ and this 7950B, decreasing prices of 7950/7970 would be a better solution for them, instead of “faster single gpu earth”, plus high power consuption and temps.
    In 6000 series, 6970 was on pair with GTX570 and GTX 580 was “king of the hill”, but that wasn´t bad for AMD, as them concentrate on price/chip efficiency, and forgot 1st position.

    »Look what i´ve found:http://www.techspot.com/news/49855-amd-plans-new-round-of-radeon-price-cuts-sleeping-dogs-bundle.html User Blue Falcon says something similar to you BestJinjo… maybe was you?«

  • tbschen

    Yes it is, 3Dcenter is a great site, at least for germans.
    The scores are averaged results from big computer sites, which makes the results more honest and reduces the impact of biased websites.

  • BestJinjo

    Funny that GPUs get cheaper and faster and games run like garbage because half the developers can’t write efficient code or make good graphics for the life of them. Sleeping Dogs with AA and global lighting looks like a 5/10 game. Crysis from 2007 puts it to shame and yet Sleeping Dogs runs like garbage in comparison with everything maxed. I have no idea how developers can’t make games look way better OR at least run so much smoother on a $500 GTX680/7970 when console GPUs are 15x slower! It’s getting out of control. Seriously, at this pace it’ll take a GTX780 SLI setup to keep with a low-level HD7000 series in PS4 the way these programmers are coding/optimizing games!

  • skr13

    Yeah, in some way i agree, console port are terrible for us.
    GTA4 is a good example of bad work optimizing games for PC.
    Anyway i prefer FPS and RTS, so i don´t have much to complain about, i don´t understand how people can play BF or COD with controllers, and Strategic games also… :)
    Best games to play on console are, Racing/Football/Adventure, but almost all of them run on 720P with 30frames.

  • BestJinjo

    I am so pissed off about Dark Souls. I was soooooo looking forward to putting up the eye-candy and getting killed in that game. Just read that it only runs at 1024×720 internal framebuffer resolution and locks the game to 30 fps max. Arghhhhhhh.

    These console ports are killing me. So much potential wasted.
    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-09-dark-souls-pc-preview-the-devils-bargain

    I want another Crysis style game on the PC that keeps the hardware race exciting.

    Look at Sleeping Dogs. The game looks average, but hammers GTX680/7970. 41 fps at 1080P on a GTX680! These developers/programmers need to go back to the drawing board. How can these console ports be so poorly optimized? SSAA, fine, but still:
    http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/graphics/msi-n680gtx-lightning/09_dogs.png

  • aubz

    “It’s worth to mention that EVGA GTX 660 Ti is already available for €280 in Europe, which is €30 less than the cheapest HD 7950″
    Have a look at this price aggregator site for the 7950:
    http://geizhals.at/de/?in=&fs=7950
    There are several 7950 models available for less than €280, some are even as low as €260. Personally, given these prices I can’t justify purchasing a 660ti. I can have a little less performance from a 7870, for €220, or a little more performance from a 7950 for €260.

  • http://videocardz.com/ VideoCardz.com

    That was written before AMD dropped their prices.

  • BestJinjo

    HardOCP = GTX660Ti OCed vs. GTX670 OCed vs. HD7950 OCed.
    http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/08/23/galaxy_gtx_660_ti_gc_oc_vs_670_hd_7950/1

    OCed 7950 beat the 1298mhz 660Ti at 1080P and tied a 1316mhz 670.
    OCed 7950 completely took apart an OCed 660Ti at 2560×1600 and beat a 1316mhz 670 too.

    Conclusion: HD7950 OCed gives GTX670 OCed performance for $80-100 less and demolishes an OCed 660Ti.

    Noteably, 660Ti couldn’t even win in BF3, and 660Ti OCed got taken apart badly in Skyrim
    http://www.hardocp.com/images/articles/1345736700tJwmf64Bk6_3_4.gif

    and Batman with MSAA:
    http://www.hardocp.com/images/articles/1345736700tJwmf64Bk6_3_3.gif