Synthetic Benchmark (3DMark PRO Fire Strike)
The 3DMark Pro Fire Strike test is designed to test top-tier graphics cards and push them to the limit. This is a great way to tell if your system is stable and can handle the best AAA titles on the market. During our original testing the card would constantly flip-flop between idle and full clock speeds. Thankfully this was corrected with the BIOS flash and we were able to get reliable results.
This test gives us the highest gains seen by the Diamond HD 7790 here with a 30.97% improvement. It is good to see it truly show what it is capable of in the right scenario. Some AAA titles could see these kinds of gains over the HD 7770 which would put it in much better company among competing graphics cards.
Synthetic Benchmark (Unigine Heaven 4.0 DX11)
The Heaven benchmark is much like the Fire Strike test in that it is completely unforgiving. We tested the HD 7790 here with Ultra High settings, Tessellation on Normal, AF at 16x and AA at 8x.
Once again we see the HD 7790 take its place above the competition with little effort. This time the margin is lower at around 20% gain; however, this benchmark is well beyond what most games will allow for graphical fidelity. When compared directly to the HD 7770 the HD 7790 is replacing, the gains come from extremes. Titles with minimal demand or really high demand is where the Diamond HD 7790 shines.
Power Consumption
Now that we have look at the performance of the HD 7790, lets see how much extra power those 256 shaders will cost you. This is very important as the HD 7790 is positioned to take the HD 7770 place in the market and we would like to know what cost we are paying in the long run.
The Diamond HD 7790 does consume power closer to the HD 6850 at both idle and load. While a set back compared to the HD 7770, it clearly made up for it with performance improvements across the board. The difference here is minor and should not be a concern for anyone looking to purchase one of these cards.
Thermal Performance
Finally we are going to look at the thermal performance of the Diamond Multimedia after market cooling solution on this card. The results all come from AIDA while FurMark was running the cards at 100% load. We retested all the cards to ensure accuracy. Lets see how the Diamond card stacks up.
This test should be taken with a grain of salt as it is being compared to cards with either fewer shaders or a different architecture. The HD 7790 is indeed much hotter at full load, but it is well within AMD specs. The Diamond HD 7790 even comes in as the lowest temperatures at idle which should balance out the stress on the components to some degree. The Diamond HD 7790 was also just as quiet as the HD 7770 solution while being a higher performance part.
Final Thoughts
The Diamond HD 7790 is based on a well designed graphical solution from AMD, but fails to live up to that standard. We are very disappointed in the amount of issues the card we received seems to be plagued with, especially those that confuse consumers, especially when it comes to the real factory default clock speed. This simply cannot happen and Diamond Multimedia needs to step up and correct the specifications that are incorrect, and ensure that their retailers do the same.
It would be easy for us to overlook incorrectly listed specification if the card itself performed to expectations. I personally went over the Diamond HD 7790 several times and I could not find any sign of damage to the hardware. At this point we can only speculate that the BIOS used for the card is somehow faulty or coded incorrectly. If this is the case, it is something Diamond needs to correct immediately. We only hope these issues are limited to the sample we received. We will do some further testing with a BIOS provided by a different brand and will add those finding in an updated post at a later date.
Despite all the work we did to show the Diamond Multimedia HD 7790 (7790PE51G) in the best possible light, I am sorry to say that we just can’t recommend the Diamond HD 7790 1 GB while it has these inconsistencies, both in performance and in specification. The company has some work to do here in order to provide a consistent quality product, from the card itself, to the information the consumer finds wherever they choose to purchase the product.
While this card can be purchased now as low as $139.99, it is surrounded by today’s more prominent brand names in graphics cards such as Sapphire, MSI and ASUS, who all have cards that circle this one from as low as $114.99 to $145.48 US that come with similar or overclocked performance, without the issues we’ve experienced here.
Diamond Multimedia was once the top dog when it came to 3D Gaming. Its Monster3D products inspired many of us, including our own Editor in Chief, to become a PC enthusiast. This is why it is truly heart breaking to see a product executed like this. But if they can turn it around in future products, there might still be enough people that remember the old Diamond Multimedia to give them a chance again.
Pros:
- Nice Accessory Package
- Short Card Length
- Quiet Operation
- High Overclock Potential
Cons:
- Inconsistent Performance
- Strange Behaviour while Idle
- Product clocks speeds listed differently depending on retailer/source
Overall Score: Â 6.5 / 10.0
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