Asus HD7850 DirectCU II [Review]

[poor_poor]

It's been a while since Asus launched their AMD Radeon HD 7850 Series using Direct Cu II cooling technology. The GPU, Pitcairn, is a downscale from the HD 7900 "Tahiti" silicon, which introduced AMD's new "GCN" Graphics Core Next architecture. Targeting gamers at mid-range budget of $200-$300.





Specifications
Graphics Engine AMD Radeon HD 7850
Bus Standard PCI Express 3.0
Video Memory 2GB GDDR5
Engine Clock 870 MHz
Memory Interface 256-bit


Testing System:
Intel Core i7 2600k
ASUS P8Z77-V
G.Skill 16Gb 2133Mhz CL9
OCZ SSD 128Gb
FSP HEXA 550W


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Unboxing Graphic Card


Asus HD7850 Direct Cu II Box




Asus HD7850 Direct Cu II features:



A nice black box after removing from the packaging boxe



Open black box cover and another small black box of Accessory package



Accessory Item:
1x Manual book
1x VGA Driver
1x DVI-I to D-sub converter



Here come the card



The card: Asus HD7850 Direct Cu II 2Gb



I/O:
2x Mini-Display Port
1x HDMI 1.4
1x DVI



Back of the card



Extended 6-pin cable for you to insert power from your PSU and the card is smaller size so this extend cable help you easily plug-in without damage the card.



Dismantle PCB and Direct Cu II heatsink



This card require 6-pin power



AMD GPU Core



Red: Eight Hynix Memory chips
Blue: 1 power phase for 12v and one mosfet driver on the right
Orange: 1 Power Phase for Vram and one mosfet driver on the right



Video Memory of 8x 256MB Hynix BGA GDDR5 modules clocked at 1250MHz (5000MHz QDR)



GPU core Power Phase area



Total 4 Power Phase for GPU cores:
Per color is 1 power phase and they are switching on and off very fast.



Asus used High Quality Mosfets, Two 4935N MOSFETs act on the low-side, and a single A4921N is used as the high-side. These MOSFETs have very low RDS(ON)



A ON Semiconductor NCP5395T 4-phase PWM is used as control voltage and monitoring.



Crossfire link: Allow you to link another Asus HD7850 card to boost up to 1.5-2.0 times performance



This black Asus heat-sink allow inner PCB layer to spread heat and lower down the PCB temperature



Video of Asus Direct Cu II
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8inXR-LqPNc[/YOUTUBE]


Asus Direct Cu II heat-sink & Fans
ASUS Dust-Proof Fan design used on the DirctCU II cooler. The fan’s housing and hub assembly is double sealed to prevent dust and particles from entering.




The two fans used in the setup are actually different - a 10-bladed 72mm 0.35A model taking care of dissipating the heat from the GPU and the other 9-bladed 80mm 0.5A unit handling VRM.



HD7850 Direct Cu II heat-pipe, seem like a difference Direct Cu II design from HD7970



Side view: Direct Cu II



Direct Cu II direct contact GPU Core using copper heat pipe

[poor_poor]

Re: Asus HD7850 DirectCU II [Review]

Testing Benchmark & Overclocking

CPU & GPU information


Asus GPU Tweak Software


Heaven Benchmark


Lost Planet 2 Part A Benchmark

Lost Planet 2 Part B Benchmark


Sanctuary Benchmark


Tropics Benchmark


The Last Remnant Benchmark


PLA Benchmark


3Dmark 11


3Dmark 11 with Virtu Mvp enable


Overclocking

3Dmark11 Overclock: 950mhz core clock & 1250mhz memory clock


3Dmark11 with Virtu Mvp Overclock: 950mhz core clock & 1250mhz memory clock


3Dmark11 Overclock: 1010mhz core clock & 1300mhz memory clock


3Dmark11 with Virtu Mvp Overclock: 1010mhz core clock & 1300mhz memory clock


Asus GPU Tweak Software: overclocking 1.1Ghz clock speed


ASIC Quality:


Conclusion
This card aiming for budget or mid-range gamers. For overclocking, Asus HD7850 has Potential to push higher then 1Ghz. The Asus Direct Cu II cooling is amazing, i realize the heat dissipation of the cooling that cool down the GPU Core is faster then other brand heat-sink.

[poor_poor]

Re: Asus HD7850 DirectCU II [Review]

3Dmark benchmark: AMD Catalyst 13.1



3Dmark benchmark: AMD Catalyst 13.2 Beta 5

Seem like no improvement on 3Dmark benchmark using 13.1 driver, but 13.2 Beta 5 resolves Texture flickering and some improvement over games.


FEATURE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE AMD CATALYST 13.2 BETA 5 DRIVER

• Crysis 3 multi-player Beta: Improves CrossFire scaling by up to 40%
• Far Cry 3: Improves performance up to 10% at 2560x1600 with 8xAA
• New 3D Mark release: Adds CrossFire profile support for the new 3D Mark release under Windows 8
• Improves performance in the Crysis 3 Multi-Player Beta by up to 50% when 4x and 8x MSAA are enabled.
• Improves performance up to 15% in high MSAA cases for the Crysis 3 beta release
• Significantly improves latency performance in Skyrim, Boderlands 2, and Guild Wars 2
• Improves single GPU performance up to 50% for DmC Devil May Cry
• Improves CrossFire performance up to 10% for Crysis 2
• Resolves Texture flickering seen in DirectX9.0c applications

.


Download AMD CATALYST 13.2 BETA 5 Driver

[poor_poor]

Re: Asus HD7850 DirectCU II [Review]

Asus Direct Cu II cooling stress test

Testing with Furmark:
FurMark is a very intensive OpenGL benchmark that uses fur rendering algorithms to measure the performance of the graphics card. Fur rendering is especially adapted to overheat the GPU and that's why FurMark is also a perfect stability and stress test tool for the graphics card.

16 minutes stress test with furmark, Asus Direct Cu II manage to keep the card cool with 39% fan speed and 62 degree celsius.


Further stressing 20 minutes with overclocking 1.1Ghz core speed and 1300 memory clock speed. The gpu increase 3 degree celsius from previous stress test and gpu temperatures stay cool on 65 degree celsius with 43% fan speed


Overclocking with 100% fan speed:
Tuning up the fan speed to 100% the gpu temperatures stay at 54-55 degree celsius with 14 minutes stress test.

[poor_poor]

Re: Asus HD7850 DirectCU II [Review]

New Benchmark from Unigine: Heaven Benchmark 4.0 setting: Max


Testing Asus HD7850 inside rig casing, temperature of the card still same as previous stress test outside the casing.


Overclocking GPU core to 1.0Ghz the temperature still below 70 degree celsius, push up the score by 67.

[poor_poor]

Re: Asus HD7850 DirectCU II [Review]

Playing on DeadSpace 3 game at max setting :)

Default clock speed



playing at 1920x1080 resolution at 107.5 frame per seconds, seem like direct cu II did well to keep the card cool at 61 degree.


at high Intensity area the fps drop to 80.5 fps, while the gpu temperature increase 1 degree celsius.


While shooting the cute monster, the card manage to keep up at 98.6fps.


This game is amazing even shooting at the monster lower body, it drop down upper body! but still crawling toward you.





CPU usage: This games only utilize 2 cores

[poor_poor]

Re: Asus HD7850 DirectCU II [Review]

Unigine Valley Benchmark 1.0: Extreme HD settings

[poor_poor]

Re: Asus HD7850 DirectCU II [Review]

DeadSpace 3 1st Boss! spotted!


He keep running away, didn't manage to kill him OMG!!


Second time appear and run away! again...... weird game

who playing this game :)

Finally finish this game!!! but too little monster :(





This is the finial boss!


The boss dead :) too easy killed..


she is isaac girlfriend :) only one survive

Monster machine is destroy! earth is safe :) end of story

[poor_poor]

Re: Asus HD7850 DirectCU II [Review]

Resident Evil 6 Benchmark: AMD Catalyst 13.2 Beta 6
Settings


Score:


FINAL FANTASY XIV benchamark:


Score:



Crysis 3


Game setting



Crysis 3 game setting recommend by AMD


1st mission start!


FPS 18.9 very low, when 1st mission started and still playable with Very high setting.


Inside the ship, the FPS stay between 23.9 ~ 47 FPS.


Finally inside ship control center


Gun customization menu


CryNet Nanosuit Cloak mode


New weapons: Composite Bow


Zoom in and shoot with Composite Bow