[section_title title=P12 : The Verdict]
The Verdict :
The Catalyst 12.11 Beta drivers does manage to eke out some extra performance, noticeable in Starcraft 2 where the gains are as high as 8%. But it is not as significant to make it compete with the GTX 660, which is still far ahead in most cases. However, when we get overclocking into the picture, things look much better for the 7850, where it is far more competitive.
AMD does not have anything new coming out this year, which means these cards will get significantly cheaper and hopefully faster with newer drivers. So this review just goes to show that there is still some potential left in this GPU and at the right price can be a steal even though its almost an year old.
The Asus HD 7850 Direct CuII is a very good card, the temperatures remain comfortably low and the fan is very silent. The large cooler might be an issue for people with a small PC, but in most cases it should be just fine. Ill give this card an 8/10 mainly due to its good performance at an acceptable price.
