Which 7950 to get?

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zanderman

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I'm in the market for a new 7950 and don't have a great idea on which one to get. I have a 955 @ 3.7 and play at 1080p so im not sure what kind of bottleneck i'll have in the games I play. Currently I mostly play BF3 and SC2 but also Far Cry 3, Skyrim and plan on purchasing some of the newer FPS games coming out. I'm not sure which 7950's are best for overclocking/cooling. Also, I will be purchasing on Amazon because I have a leftover gift card. I appreciate any help!
 
Gigabyte $300- This is one that im considering right now. Is this the windforce edition?
 
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http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/powercolor_hd7870_myst/15.htm
http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/sapphire-hd7870-w-boost-tahiti-le-review/11/

There is a couple 7870XT/7930LE out there, cheaper price wise, and neck and neck to same performance of an oc 7950(factory) I know a 7870 oc will also keep up to a 7950/7970 in most everything except for bitcoin mining and super high resolution, and of course a few games as well.

I would say hold on as long as you can, radeon 8k series is coming out and will bring some more performance to the table at a good price, and will probably make even the 7970 less $ to boot.

But beyond that, that tri-fan gigabyte cooler is windforce cooler. The only issue that I have read from them is they do not cool the Vreg/memory so well but do cool the core quite well. I myself would stick with sapphire/msi/asus/xfx and such as their coolers are provable coolers for the entire card(not just the core)

Anyways 7950 wise, MSI TwinFrozr III OC- sapphire VaporX--Asus HD7950-DC2T-3GD5--His IceQ-----Gigabyte tri fan.
the 3 top ones have all the right boxes ticked, overclocking headroom, quiet, exceptional cooling
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/43985-sapphire-radeon-hd-7950-oc-vapor-x/?page=13
 
dragonstongue said:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/powercolor_hd7870_myst/15.htm
http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/sapphire-hd7870-w-boost-tahiti-le-review/11/

There is a couple 7870XT/7930LE out there, cheaper price wise, and neck and neck to same performance of an oc 7950(factory) I know a 7870 oc will also keep up to a 7950/7970 in most everything except for bitcoin mining and super high resolution, and of course a few games as well.

I would say hold on as long as you can, radeon 8k series is coming out and will bring some more performance to the table at a good price, and will probably make even the 7970 less $ to boot.

But beyond that, that tri-fan gigabyte cooler is windforce cooler. The only issue that I have read from them is they do not cool the Vreg/memory so well but do cool the core quite well. I myself would stick with sapphire/msi/asus/xfx and such as their coolers are provable coolers for the entire card(not just the core)

Anyways 7950 wise, MSI TwinFrozr III OC- sapphire VaporX--Asus HD7950-DC2T-3GD5--His IceQ-----Gigabyte tri fan.
the 3 top ones have all the right boxes ticked, overclocking headroom, quiet, exceptional cooling
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/43985-sapphire-radeon-hd-7950-oc-vapor-x/?page=13
Click to expand...

Is the 8k series coming in June? Waiting till then and doing a new build with Haswell is tempting.
 
If watercooling, reference.

If you want quiet with being cool on air, then ASUS with DCII or MSI Twin Frozer / Power Edition / Lightning or Gigabyte with triple fans.

Otherwise, dual fans and whatever's cheapest.
 
7950 is all around quite a bit better than the 7870. When comparing benches remember the 7870 runs 20% higher clocks and still isn't quite as fast. Set the 7950 to 1GHz+ and there's no real comparison.

A quick scan of Amazon and the Gigabyte seems to be the best deal. Great cooler, quiet, and usually O/C's well.
 
7870XT is a lower shader amount lower memory amount 7950(and should have been called 7930 not 7870XT) and does get the benefit of being a bit more mature so it can clock higher(on average) sometimes(with a good card) a heck of alot more, this is why thier performance is 9/10 very much the same. Very similar to gtx660 power edition, cause it clocks so high, it makes the gtx670 look silly to purchase, or better yet, the gtx460 1gb full shader, very few reasons to ever get the gtx470 when the 460 came out really.
 
zanderman said:
Gigabyte $300- This is one that im considering right now. Is this the windforce edition?
Click to expand...

In the middle of the box on the left side it states it is the Windforce edition.
I have two of the factory OC versions in my current gamer. Quiet, and they do what they are supposed to do, when you use the right drivers. I got mine at Microcenter for less than that Amazon price though. Mine were $295 ea.
 
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http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=677&card2=664#
well, considering there is a massive difference in shaders, texture units, as well as memory bandwidth, the performance of an overclocked 7870 vs an overclocked 7950 is not all that huge-purely spec based, the power draw of a 7950 is also noticeably higher.

Thing is, if you are running very high resolutions, or are doing some heavy gpu compute type stuff, then the 7900 series(as well as 7870XTX/7930LE) are the way to go, otherwise, 7870 overclocked is plenty fast. Alot of folks seem to hit around the 1075 mark on an "unlocked" 7950, most 7870 can do around 1175 core if not much higher. In most games, this ends up being not much different barring very high amounts of AF/AA and very high resolutions.

Anyways. As for the gigabyte tri-fan, it is a decent card all around, all the 7950 are, but there are many picks as far as coolers, as far as brands, some on average overclock higher as well, they also make Trixx/power uptuner, msi afterburner and such to be able to adjust fans rpm/temperature thresholds, ahh well to each thier own.

The Radeon 8k series(not the rebadged OEM versions but CI/SI) is supposed to be launching in 2Q2013 so there should be news soon enough.
 
I would recommend against HIS brand products. They are god awful at honoring warranties and dealing with in general.

I would go with ASUS or Gigabyte.
 
Might be the coolest as far as some are concerned, but I kind of doubt that it is, certainly is not the quietest, not with a single blower fan, and I used to like the blower style coolers, untill they start getting a bit dusty(which they will) then they are a pain in the arse to keep clean/performing well.

This time around, Sapphire, MSI, Asus(to a point) Gigabyte(to a point) and even powercolor offer just as good, and actually suport thier products well historically, especially in the case of the first 3 listed.
 
Joseph F said:
The HIS Radeon 7950 IceQ is the best 7950 on the market.

It's the coolest, and quietest 7950, it blows all the exhaust air out the back, and it overclocks well. What more can you wish for in a graphics card?

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/his_radeon_hd_7950_iceq_turbo_review,8.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/his_radeon_hd_7950_iceq_turbo_review,9.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/his_radeon_hd_7950_iceq_turbo_review,23.html
Click to expand...



I like the ICEQx2 Boost Edition better because it is built on powerful reference HD7970 PCB and would work great for water cooling because of the many water block options for HD7970 PCB.

HD7950 cards that have used reference HD7970 PCB.


1. VTX3D HD 7950 X-Edition V2 w/ 7970 PC
2. HIS ICEQ X2 Boost
3. MSI TF3
4. Sapphire 950mhz Edition
5. A795 Fire Hurricane
 
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zanderman said:
Hey guys, thank you for all the responses! I've narrowed it down to a few different cards.

Sapphire 7950 w/ Boost $330

Sapphire 7950 Vapor-X $380

Sapphire HD 7970 OC with Boost $390

I will be overclocking as high I can go. I guess my big question now is if the extra $50-60 is going to show a good performance increase going from a 7950 boost to a 7950 vapor-x or 7970. Thanks again for the help!
Click to expand...

Ended up ordering the Sapphire 7970 OC w/ boost. After MIR it ends up being $370. I thought this was a good enough price to justify the purchase.
 
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zanderman said:
Ended up ordering the Sapphire 7970 OC w/ boost. After MIR it ends up being $370. I thought this was a good enough price to justify the purchase.
Click to expand...

I think you get more for your money from a well made HD7950 but that is a very nice card. Keep us posted on how it performs.
 
SonDa5 said:
I think you get more for your money from a well made HD7950 but that is a very nice card. Keep us posted on how it performs.
Click to expand...

Just finished installing it a few hours ago and put in some time on BF3 and Far Cry 3. I have not tried to overclock it yet. Stock the core is at 950MHz/1.025V and the memory is at 1425MHz. Before in Battlefield 3 I was only able to play on High with 2x MSAA at 1080p without HBAO and got about 40 FPS. Now I'm able to do Ultra 4x MSAA with an average of about 60 FPS depending on the map. In Far Cry 3 I can now play on Ultra with 2x MSAA at 40-60 FPS. Before I could only use High without any MSAA.

Its hard to tell how much of a bottleneck my CPU is giving me without testing it some more. I'm guessing min FPS might be taking a hit but this is a huge upgrade over my old reference 5870.

The card is pretty tight in my case which is in my sig. So far I'm happy with the performance but I'm not sure if my CPU can give it justice. Guess I'll have to upgrade when Haswell comes around :)
 
dragonstongue said:
Might be the coolest as far as some are concerned, but I kind of doubt that it is, certainly is not the quietest, not with a single blower fan, and I used to like the blower style coolers, untill they start getting a bit dusty(which they will) then they are a pain in the arse to keep clean/performing well.

This time around, Sapphire, MSI, Asus(to a point) Gigabyte(to a point) and even powercolor offer just as good, and actually suport thier products well historically, especially in the case of the first 3 listed.
Click to expand...

So, you're just going to ignore the measured noise chart I posted?
 
zanderman said:
Just finished installing it a few hours ago and put in some time on BF3 and Far Cry 3. I have not tried to overclock it yet. Stock the core is at 950MHz/1.025V and the memory is at 1425MHz. Before in Battlefield 3 I was only able to play on High with 2x MSAA at 1080p without HBAO and got about 40 FPS. Now I'm able to do Ultra 4x MSAA with an average of about 60 FPS depending on the map. In Far Cry 3 I can now play on Ultra with 2x MSAA at 40-60 FPS. Before I could only use High without any MSAA.

Its hard to tell how much of a bottleneck my CPU is giving me without testing it some more. I'm guessing min FPS might be taking a hit but this is a huge upgrade over my old reference 5870.

The card is pretty tight in my case which is in my sig. So far I'm happy with the performance but I'm not sure if my CPU can give it justice. Guess I'll have to upgrade when Haswell comes around :)
Click to expand...

Glad that you like your card.
Could you post some OC numbers when you finally get around to it.
 
zanderman said:
Just finished installing it a few hours ago and put in some time on BF3 and Far Cry 3. I have not tried to overclock it yet. Stock the core is at 950MHz/1.025V and the memory is at 1425MHz. Before in Battlefield 3 I was only able to play on High with 2x MSAA at 1080p without HBAO and got about 40 FPS. Now I'm able to do Ultra 4x MSAA with an average of about 60 FPS depending on the map. In Far Cry 3 I can now play on Ultra with 2x MSAA at 40-60 FPS. Before I could only use High without any MSAA.

Its hard to tell how much of a bottleneck my CPU is giving me without testing it some more. I'm guessing min FPS might be taking a hit but this is a huge upgrade over my old reference 5870.

The card is pretty tight in my case which is in my sig. So far I'm happy with the performance but I'm not sure if my CPU can give it justice. Guess I'll have to upgrade when Haswell comes around :)
Click to expand...

your card has core clocks 950 mhz with powertune boost to 1 Ghz. max out power control to +20% in AMD CCC. you can easily overclock to 1.1 ghz at stock voltage and even higher with voltage tweaking using sapphire trixx. if you can get your phenom ii x4 to 4 ghz.
 
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Joseph F said:
So, you're just going to ignore the measured noise chart I posted?
Click to expand...

This doesn`t take into account other cards either, only more or less reference solutions, I will say again what I have said, single blower style fans, even larger dimnesion ones, generally are not quite, open air style(dont blow air through card usually) are generally quieter overall, or at least the sound though louder is also more bearable(less of a whine, and more of a whoosh from the air)

This also does not take into account the sound when overclocked which obviouslly produces more heat and will more oft then not require the fan to run at a higher RPM to equal more noise delivered.

In other words, if this fan at its "stock" spins say 23%-40% idle/load I can say mine is just as quiet. however, let it spin up to say 60% or higher to deal with the extra temps, that "silent" factor is no longer there. The PCS+ single fan and all the reference design cards that use a blower(slightly smaller) all have this issue, to deal with higher temps, fan spins higher % wise, and it is very noticeable.

Not that it matters, I personally would not buy HIS anyways. Thier warranty/rma policies are apprently not the greatest, from what I gather. Here is hoping no product you get will ever have to be warrantied anyways :)

As far as the cpu. With BF3 specifically, unless it is a very low end dual core/quad core, pretty much every cpu shows nearly the same scaling anyways. BF3 relies far more on thread count at a given speed then it relies purely on raw speed, unless of course you are using a lower res and dual or multiple gpu anyways. BF3 and alot of other games, do not scale a hell of alot with a wicked cpu then a decent cpu, the difference is only a few FPS and will not usually a play or not play type thing, lots of benchmarks/charts show the scaling levels(won`t scale if bottlenecked, or at least very poor performace if bottlenecked of course)http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html
so yeh, as long as cpu is "decent" running proper res, it does not tap cpu nearly as hard as running low res or dual/multi gpu.
 
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Although it was a worthwile upgrade, my OC'ed 955 is bottlenecking my 7970 in some games. I'm going to upgrade to either a FX 8350 with my current mobo in my sig or a 3570k before I start overclocking my 7970. I'm not sure whether a 3570K is worth a new mobo/ram.
 
Yeh, I would go the 8350 route as well, at least this plus another upgrade range vs who knows with Intel at this point, they do change thier minds at the last minute it seems. Performance wise the Intel would be better to go with, but that 8350 should do just fine, and also save quite a few $ in the process, I know my buddy uses an 8150 clocked up a bit with dual 6970 and he has not had an issue with it, mind you he is using Corsair A70 cooler vs my hyper 212+ P/P.

That 955 is a C2 or C3 rev?, I know my 955 1.43 4.25-4.32Ghz can do ~2800 on the cpu/nb with 1.235v a little over 2100 on the HT 1.22v and let the ram run at about 1900 before it flakes out, but, I think it needs the better cooling as it gets quite warm testing it, in the mid 50s.

If you have the cpu/nb and HT running faster and let the chip do 3.7 thats fine but the extra speed on the other portions do help quite a bit, might just be a matter of fine tuning it a bit to get more out of it, you should be able to do 3.9-4.2 if your board allows it. CPU VDDA and LLC help alot.

Just figure I would throw that out there. Fact of the matter, Phenom II are more "efficent" in regard to how they handle memory, as well as thier cache latency and the like. They are also a true quad core, not a quad with extra portions slapped on for good measure :p
 
dragonstongue said:
Yeh, I would go the 8350 route as well, at least this plus another upgrade range vs who knows with Intel at this point, they do change thier minds at the last minute it seems. Performance wise the Intel would be better to go with, but that 8350 should do just fine, and also save quite a few $ in the process, I know my buddy uses an 8150 clocked up a bit with dual 6970 and he has not had an issue with it, mind you he is using Corsair A70 cooler vs my hyper 212+ P/P.

That 955 is a C2 or C3 rev?, I know my 955 1.43 4.25-4.32Ghz can do ~2800 on the cpu/nb with 1.235v a little over 2100 on the HT 1.22v and let the ram run at about 1900 before it flakes out, but, I think it needs the better cooling as it gets quite warm testing it, in the mid 50s.

If you have the cpu/nb and HT running faster and let the chip do 3.7 thats fine but the extra speed on the other portions do help quite a bit, might just be a matter of fine tuning it a bit to get more out of it, you should be able to do 3.9-4.2 if your board allows it. CPU VDDA and LLC help alot.

Just figure I would throw that out there. Fact of the matter, Phenom II are more "efficent" in regard to how they handle memory, as well as thier cache latency and the like. They are also a true quad core, not a quad with extra portions slapped on for good measure :p
Click to expand...

Mine is a C2 so it's a little limited on its overclocking abilities.
 
should still be able to get it in the 3.8-4.0 range though and boost its HT/CPU-NB if you havent already, it should help quite a bit, by all means dont kill it with to much voltage though. I know for me, doing what most recomended for cpu/nb was 1.35v and that was far far to much for it to be stable and high speed. C2/C3 usually have nearly the same speed capabilities, difference is C3 require less voltage overall and can usually run memory at a higher rate.
 
they are not the greatest coolers this time around, the DD coolers for 6k series were awesome as were the DCII cards, but, there are better right now, with exception to the Asus 7850 DCII which apprently are awesome. Stiff competition this time around.
 
Well since I've heard the news about no new AMD cards likely to be out this year. I was going to pull the trigger and get a 7950. Problem is I am not sure which one to get anymore. With all this talk of different BIOS' and 7970 PCBs. Some with boost and some without. It's all confusing lol.

Was looking at the Gigabyte Windforce for $289 CDN on NCIX.com

or

The Powercolor PCs for $289 with a 30 dollar MIR to bring it to $259

The powercolor one has boost and the windforce doesn't, so you see my confusion.

The other cards are sitting at like $329 or more.

I will probably not upgrade for a couple years.

My PC specs.
Core i5 750
P55-UD4P Mobo
4gb ram
Radeon 4350(Yes a 4350, Now you know why I want a new card lol)
 
NCIX has the MSI Twin Frozr III 7950 on sale for $300 right now with a rebate that brings it to $285 and you get two games. It has a 3 year transferable warranty which is a big plus to me. I have one and it runs cool, overclocked to 1100/1575 on stock volts and comes overclocked from the factory if you don't want to overclock. Has dual bios aswell
 
Scheibler1 said:
NCIX has the MSI Twin Frozr III 7950 on sale for $300 right now with a rebate that brings it to $285 and you get two games. It has a 3 year transferable warranty which is a big plus to me. I have one and it runs cool, overclocked to 1100/1575 on stock volts and comes overclocked from the factory if you don't want to overclock. Has dual bios aswell
Click to expand...

Unfortunately that price for the MSI Twin Frozr is on the US website. It is 334CDN right now. Which is kind of ridiculous given the current exchange rate.
 
Well I pulled the trigger and got the Gigabyte Windforce 7950, and with luck it was the version with the 8pin+6 pin power connectors and has 1000MHz stock on the GPU and 1250MHz on the memory. Idles 33 C and I couldn't even notice a difference when I plugged it in soundwise :p

BTW game results are awesome now.
 
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