Is the AMD Radeon HD 7950 a good graphics card to use for Minecraft?

Question

I know this seems like a completely dumb question, but I've heard from a few YouTubers that the card doesn't get a great framerate on Minecraft, which I'll definitely be playing a lot. One of the reasons I wanted such a high-end card was because I wanted to use a 512x512 texture pack while at the same time using Sonic Ether's Unbelievable Shaders and possibly recording, but if the card's not good for Minecraft, I'll look into something else. Since Minecraft is also fairly CPU-heavy, it's worth mentioning that I plan on getting an i5 3570k, and I also plan to donate four of my 16GB of RAM to Minecraft, possibly a little more of the need arises. I'm also planning on playing Skyrim and a few other games in 1080p on Ultra with ENB enabled, so I'm really looking into high-end cards for multiple reasons. I appreciate all the feedback you guys give me!

Answer 1

Okay, first of all, AMD and Nvidia both had driver problems so there is no point in telling that AMD had driver problems. I, myself have a 7950 (check my rig in my profile) and in Battlefield 3 I get 60 fps with 4X MSAA and at 1080p. Minecraft is very poor in graphical game. You can max out Minecraft with even a 7770. With a 7950, you will get well over 100fps on maxed out settings. The 750 is the second best AMD single graphics card on the market right and to be honest, I never had any trouble with their drivers and GPUs.

The 7950 competes with the GTX 670.

Take a look: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

Don't bother about the 6990, GTX 690 or GTX 590 or the 7990 because they are actually two GPUs. The GTX 690 for example is actually two GTX 680s.



Skyrim wont be any trouble maxing out. You wont get any lag.

Also, I am not a "FAN BOY", I used both GPUs and currently, I think AMD has the GPU market in terms of performance for money.

You wont need 16GB of RAM. Games yet don't even utilize 5GB of RAM and since you are going to be recording, 8GB RAM will be more than enough.



Don't worry at all about Minecraft. This game is not as intensive GPU and CPU wise as you think. You wont have any problem with this graphics card.



EDIT:

I might or I actually did over-exaggerated the fact that Nvidia had driver issues. Nvidia never had driver issues, but I never had any issues with AMD drivers up till now and I just don't want people to be misguided by the fact that AMD "has" driver issues. That is just wrong and that is the experience of an individual. Sure, AMD did have driver issues before, but if you look at it now, there is none.



EDIT

I see you want more opinions from more people.

Your really don't need two 7950 because it is too overkill. A sound card is not needed because the mobo comes with one and I am guessing you aren't gonna do some high music stuff (sorry I have no idea what to call it) so you wont need it.

Since you wont need that maybe you should get a 7970. You see that benchmark from techpowerup I gave you? If you look at all the games they have tested, you can see that the 7970 wins in 12 of the total 18 games tested. It even wins in BF3. I would get the 7970, but I am pretty sure Nvidia will release their new driver soon, so it's your call.



EDIT:

My bad, here is the benchmark:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Catalyst_12.11_Performance/6.html

Answer 2

The only reason I could see that being possible is due to the drivers for the 7950. AMD has somewhat of a history with poor drivers from time to time



EDIT: Lol. Well obviously you don't want or need two 7950s. That's just ridiculous overkill for Minecraft. One is actually. That user just has no idea what he's talking about. You do not need 16 GB of RAM either. And you DON'T need to spend anything on an expensive sound card unless you are hooking up high end audio equipment. Motherboards today have excellent audio and you will notice zero difference in sound quality. Buy what you need and don't waste money



Hell, just drop the sound card, 8 GB of RAM and get an Nvidia 680 GTX and you won't have to worry about anything

Answer 3

Yeah I see what you're saying. Let me brake this down into two sections here:



#1). 512x512 Texture Packs:



I think this is more of a VRAM thing so having at least 2GBs for the video card and at least 8GBs of RAM just for Minecraft should be enough.



#2). Sonic Ether's Unbelievable Shaders:



I've tried this mod too and I'm somewhat up to date on it as well, all the performance problems with it are compatibility related things. Sonic Ether uses an HD 6950 for his own machine so on this GPU you can run the mod flawlessly. The 1.2.5 version is better for this and I think you can run it on a number of video cards, but his newer version you'll want an HD 6950 to be able to run it properly until the bugs get worked out. Only problem with this is that it's an older card now and it's kind of a waste to buy an HD 6950 now.





I think you're on the right route here. For the HD 7950 I'd recommend getting an MSI card, their coolers are the best so you can either run them quieter or overclock higher:

Video: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127667&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

Answer 4

I would buy two 7950

Answer 5

yes, it could be