AMD Releases New Radeon HD 7790

It’s that time again, gamers. Summer is coming and lots of fun new games are coming out. With the release of fresh new eye-candy like Bioshock Infinite and the gaming feast that is E3 just around the corner, many of us are looking to upgrade out gaming PCs. Of course except for the introduction of the 1000$ Nvidia Titan, the GPU market has been fairly stagnant the last several months.

Not any more, as AMD as decided to shake things up with a new entry into the Radeon HD7700 series: the Radeon 7790. This card has been built on the new GCN (Graphics Core Next) 1.1 architecture. In laymen’s terms it’s the newest technology available from Team Red.

The new 7790 cards are built to provide budget conscious gamers a great upgrade to their system that will handle the newest games at full 1080p resolution.

Starting this week, almost every manufacturer is preparing versions of this card, but our current favorite is the Sapphire HD 7790 OC with Dual-X. We have always been a fan of Sapphire’s cards for their impressive factory overclocks and powerful cooling systems. This new card looks to be no different. It is about 7-percent faster than the standard card, and features a large dual-fan cooling system that should keep your card cool, and your case quiet.

As a bonus for anyone looking to upgrade now, all HD 7790 card will be sold with a voucher good for one free copy of Bioshock Infinite.

Look for all new cards to carry a price of about $150-$175 USD, with our chosen Sapphire card sitting square in the middle at $159.99. For more information about the Sapphire card, and the new HD 7790 chips, check out the full press release below.

SAPPHIRE Technology has just introduced the first in a new family of products in its highly successful HD 7000 series of graphics cards.  The SAPPHIRE HD 7790 OC is based on the latest chipset featuring the highly acclaimed graphics GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture from AMD and sets a new standard for performance in mainstream graphics.

The SAPPHIRE HD 7790 OC Edition is the first product in a new family featuring the latest GPU architecture from AMD with 896 Stream processor units. It has 1GB of the latest DDR5 memory and is factory overclocked, with core clocks of 1075MHz and memory clocks of 1600MHz (6.4GB/s effective), to deliver new levels of performance in its price segment.  Performance is optimised with the latest version of AMD’s PowerTune technology. Quiet and cool operation is assured with SAPPHIRE’s Dual-X cooler design, which combines a multiple heatpipe array with two aerofoil section fans and dust repelling bearings resulting in a highly efficient and reliable cooler.

The SAPPHIRE HD 7790 OC Edition can be installed in any PC with a free x16 PCI-Express slot, and communication with the host PC is optimised with the use of the latest high speed PCI-Express Gen3.0 interface. Built in hardware support for AMD CrossFire enables multiple cards to be used to further enhance performance in a suitably specified mainboard.

The SAPPHIRE HD 7790 OC supports the latest industry standards and is ready for Windows 8 with its architecture designed for DirectX 11.1, OpenGL 4.2 and OpenCL 1.2. This latest version of AMD’s Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture also supports an unparalleled array of display and audio technologies, with new fast HDMI features (such as support for 4K resolution and full frame rate 1080p stereoscopic support), DisplayPort 1.2 certification (with support for Multi-Stream Transmission), and DDM Audio (which adds supports for up to 6 simultaneous independent audio streams). Video capabilities include native support for 3D Blu-ray (MVC Codec), DivX decode and hardware encoding of H.264 video via VCE.

Working or gaming with multiple monitors is becoming increasingly popular, and the SAPPHIRE HD 7700 series supports this with AMD Eyefinity, now in its second generation. The SAPPHIRE HD 7790 OC Edition has two DVI ports (DVI-I and DVI-D), HDMI and a single DisplayPort output, supporting up to four monitors.

The SAPPHIRE HD 7790 OC Edition model supports the FleX feature, pioneered by SAPPHIRE, that allows three digital displays to be connected to the DVI and HDMI outputs and used in AMD Eyefinity mode without the need for an external active adapter. All four outputs can be used in AMD Eyefinity mode, but the fourth display must be a DisplayPort monitor or connected with an active adapter.

SAPPHIRE will also introduce the HD 7790 1GB standard edition, sharing all the same features as the OC model, but with the slightly lower clocks of 1000MHz for the core and memory clocks of 1500MHz (6GB/s effective). The HD 7790 1GB has a SAPPHIRE original cooler with dual heatpipes and a single fan, and the same output configuration as the OC model.

APP Acceleration is the name given to the enhanced performance of a wide range of applications using the stream processing capabilities and specific hardware features of the GCN graphics architecture. The HD 7000 series has been optimised for this type of task. Typical applications include Video encoding and decoding, compression and multiplexing for media distribution, gaming or video conferencing.  APP acceleration can also enhance everyday tasks such as Internet browsing, Office applications and file compression with supported software suites.

The SAPPHIRE HD 7790 series is ready to ship and will be available through SAPPHIRE’s established etail and retail partners.

Full specifications are available on our website at www.sapphiretech.com