Diamond BV750 Low Profile 7750 Graphics Card

Shawn Michaels May 10, 2013 AMD, Hardware, Reviews & Articles, Video Cards/Graphics Cards 1 Comment

Testing & Methodology

We’ve expanded our testing suite considerably since the X79 chipset release, and will continue to use the same methods for most of the motherboards and CPU’s we test. In the interests of thoroughness and accurate results, we run each test at least three times, and some tests more than that. We average the total of all the tests from each benchmark then report the average here.

The OS we use is Windows 7 Pro 64bit with all patches and updates applied. We also use the latest drivers available for the motherboard and any devices attached to the computer. We do not disable background tasks or tweak the OS or system in any way. We turn off drive indexing and daily defragging. We also turn off Prefetch and Superfetch. This is not an attempt to produce bigger benchmark numbers. Drive indexing and defragging can interfere with testing and produce confusing numbers. If a test were to be run while a drive was being indexed or defragged, and then the same test was later run when these processes were off, the two results would be contradictory and erroneous. As we cannot control when defragging and indexing occur precisely enough to guarantee that they won’t interfere with testing, we opt to disable the features entirely.

Prefetch tries to predict what users will load the next time they boot the machine by caching the relevant files and storing them for later use. We want to learn how the program runs without any of the files being cached, and we disable it so that each test run we do not have to clear Prefetch to get accurate numbers. Lastly we disable Superfetch. Superfetch loads often-used programs into the memory. It is one of the reasons that Windows occupies so much memory. Vista fills the memory in an attempt to predict what users will load. Having one test run with files cached, and another test run with the files un-cached would result in inaccurate numbers. Again, since we can’t control its timings so precisely, it we turn it off. Because these four features can potentially interfere with benchmarking, and and are out of our control, we disable them. We do not disable anything else.

We are revamping our testing method in order to better represent motherboard performance and offering to the consumer. Also we want to make it an easier read for you without miles of endless charts. We ask that you provide feedback in an effort to help us deliver better reviews for you.

Test Rig

Test Rig
Case	Open Air Test Bench
CPU	Intel Core i7-3770K
Motherboard	ASUS Maximus V Formula
Ram	16GB Patriot Viper Xtreme 2400MHz +
CPU Cooler	Swiftech H20-320 Edge
Hard Drive	Western Digital Velociraptor 300GB
SSD	Intel 510 series SATA III 120GB
Optical	ASUS BD-ROM
GPU	Diamond BV750
Additional Cards	N/A
PSU	Thermaltake Toughpower XT 1475W
Mouse	Tt eSPORTS Theron gaming mouse
Keyboard	Tt eSPORTS Meka G1 mechanical gaming keyboard

 

Test Suite

We will use the following applications to test the performance of the graphics card.

Synthetic Benchmarks & Games

Benchmarks
3DMark11
Batman Arkham City
Just Cause 2
Lost Planet 2
Metro 2033
Heaven Benchmark
Battlefield 3

 

 

Temperatures

The temperatures were recorded with full loaded Heaven benchmark looping for over 30 minutes or longer depending how long it took for the card to level out in temps and sat at a plateau for more than 10 minutes.

GPU Temperatures	Temperature (Idle/Load)
BV750	29C/65C

The cooler did rather well but the 7750 is not known as a overly hot running GPU as it simply does not pull much power so even in the most basic systems this card should run just fine.

Real world/Gaming Benchmarks

3DMARK 11

3DMark 11 is the newest in Futuremark’s suite of benchmarking utilities. Its a fully capable DirectX11 benchmark which also stresses and analyzes the system performance as a whole to simulate a heavy rendering environment such as a high end game or other app the end user may run. This benchmark was run with Performance settings 5 times and all runs were averaged for the result below.

Here you can see that the BV750 is hovering right around the reference 7750 model in the 3DMark tests which is nice since the BV750 is basically half of a card compared to the full size 7750 model.

Batman Arkham City

Batman Arkham city is one of those games that is just downright fun, and also it is nice as it gives very repeatable results for a game test. PhysX is disabled to level the playing field due to the fact that it would load the GPU on Nvidia based cards more to add the pretty effects which could hinder framerates giving AMD an advantage.

Here I was a bit surprised that the tiny BV750 card could pull of quite playable framerates on Batman, which means while this card may offer increased possibility for productivity it can also pull off some fun time as well ripping through some gaming.

Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2 has been in my stable of games for awhile, and is quite graphics intensive so I try to bring it out as it is a fun all around game and allows a nice test of a cards capabilities. 

 Here again the BV750 offers very playable frame rates even at HD resolution which is a very good sign for this tiny card.

Lost Planet 2

Lost planet 2 even for being a bit older tends to offer a very good load even keeping top end GPU’s capped at a little over 60 FPS so it is definitely a good tool to put the hurt on a more mainstream value card.

Here with Lost Planet 2 the BV750 is a bit outmatched with the details cranked up. With AA and other details turned down I am betting it could be playable but eye candy would definitely be removed. But you have to remember this is made as a productivity card so in reality its not too bad.

Metro 2033

Metro 2033 likely one of the most demanding games that we have tested with, as it brings virtually every GPU to its knees. Here the baby card definitely struggles and I am in no way surprised as Metro is simply killer to a card, even high end.

Heaven Benchmark

Unigine Heaven is a very popular benchmark, but due to the fact I am still working on validating the repeatability of scores on the new 4.0 version I decided to stick with the 3.0 version for this test.

Here the BV750 is behind the standard 7750 by less than 1% but still nets some decent performance for its mainstream roots and low profile size. 

Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 is probably one of the most popular FPS titles, and with its range of graphics capabilities definitely a fitting test as it also is played by a alrge part of the PC Gaming crowd.

Battlefield 3 is simply a bit too advanced but once again remember the main purpose of the card so in reality with lower detail I am betting it could be rather playable.