AMD Radeon HD 7750 Pro 1GB Graphics Card Review

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar6a97_YYw4[/youtube]

So what can we say from the new 7750 Pro? Well from a performance point of view, naturally its not going to be chasing the tails of the 7900 series, but for a card that gets the everyday user onto the first rung of the 7000 series ladder, its a great start.  During our single screen resolutions tests (1680×1050 and 1920×1080) we say that anything over 30fps is playable and some the tests were coming back with rates that we would therefore regard as playable. Naturally the easiest way to up these rates would be to drop the games video quality down a step or two, particularly Anti-Alias and Anisotropic Filtering.  For the casual gamer this would be a worthwhile option and a cost effective upgrade to their system.

Continuing with the performance aspect and onto Eyefinity, we will be perfectly honest and say that this card is not upto the job, however this is not the idea for this type of card after all if you’re looking for Eyefinity based gaming then you’re more than likely to have a high performance system and thus a more powerful card will be a better option.

So why the Eyefinity support? As we mentioned at the start of the review, not everyone is after a card that can crunch frame after frame at a high rate – ie not everyone is a gamer.  Other users need a card for a multiscreen desktop – such as music producers, and the support for upto 6 screens on a budget card is great to see at this end of the market.

Being a reference design card, the cooler design is a bit simple but after all it is reference design which does as its intended to with no thrills and once AMD’s partners get their hands onto the board, each will bless it with their own cooler designs and maybe even tweak the Cape Verde core to get a little bit extra bang for buck out of it. – after all why can’t everyone have the opportunity to by an ‘Overclocked’ edition of graphics card?

Pricing wise, we expect to see the 7950 appearing on the market for around about $109 (~£70) although we have no word yet on UK pricing as of yet. This pricing level re-iterates that the first rung onto the 7000 series ladder is easily affordable and with this sort of price in mind, you are getting a fair deal for your money.

Is there any downers I have to put on this card? Well the only point I noted whilst testing the card was not that the fan was loud, but more its tone. This would come down the reference coolers ultra slim design and thus the pitch of the fans blades is very shallow. The culmination of these factors gave a tone that when at full load gave the card a nasty whine. This though would not affect the end user however as, as mentioned, AMD’s partners will put their own better improved coolers onto the boards for a better cooling efficiency.  Certainly going by Sapphire’s 7950 OC cooler, I’d probably expect an almost silent cooler design.