Radeon HD 7950 Owner's Thread

[Smartazz]

Originally Posted by Riceninja

the sapphire 2L is now discontinued. i was hoping to crossfire two of the exact same 7950s...

Wow, I'm glad I bought the second one last week. Makes it less silly to buy a GPU a month before the rest of my new build but Bitcoin mining swayed me to buy now.

[Communism]

Originally Posted by Riceninja

the sapphire 2L is now discontinued. i was hoping to crossfire two of the exact same 7950s...

Just get a MSI TFIII.

Be wary of putting two open cooler overclocked 7950s together though, they will heat each other up significantly.

[BallaTheFeared]

Originally Posted by Riceninja

the sapphire 2L is now discontinued. i was hoping to crossfire two of the exact same 7950s...

Pfft I ordered the same 7950 and got a different PCB.

[Smartazz]

Originally Posted by BallaTheFeared

Pfft I ordered the same 7950 and got a different PCB.

I did too, but they both overvolt and look pretty similar so I'm happy.

[Zargon]

Originally Posted by chimaxi83

He installed heatinks on the stock heat spreader/plate of his card, right over the VRMs, to improve their cooling.

Originally Posted by Face2Face

OCN = Overclock.net I have a thread on their forums showing the same modifications I am doing here.

BTW playing crysis 3 for awhile @ 1200/1650 puts me at

VRM #1 71c
VRM #2 66c

Much better This mod was well worth it and successful in my eyes.

new tape under, than that heatsink on top of the stock plate?

[Face2Face]

Originally Posted by Zargon

new tape under, than that heatsink on top of the stock plate?

I used Fujipoly thermal pads to replace the stock MSI thermal pads (Under the plate). I then used double sided thermal tape to attach heatsinks on top of the stock plate.

[Tarvaln]

I just got a Sapphire 7950 (2L if you shop newegg). I want to overclock it but do I need to install Trixx or another overclocking software? I already have AMD CCC which can overclock and Radeon Pro which has an overclock setting. (I assume Radeon pro just uses the CCC overclock.) Is there a purpose in installing another? I don't plan to over-volt.

Thanks

[canadiantrex]

Originally Posted by Tarvaln

I just got a Sapphire 7950 (2L if you shop newegg). I want to overclock it but do I need to install Trixx or another overclocking software? I already have AMD CCC which can overclock and Radeon Pro which has an overclock setting. (I assume Radeon pro just uses the CCC overclock.) Is there a purpose in installing another? I don't plan to over-volt.

Thanks

With my 7850, Trixx had higher max settings for the core clock than the Catalyst Control Center did. Dunno how it is for other models.

[Barfo]

So...my 7950 is on the way and I was thinking that 3GB is overkill for 1080p, which is the res I game at...will I ever use all that memory if I don't plan to upgrade my monitor anytime soon?

[psolord]

Originally Posted by Barfo

So...my 7950 is on the way and I was thinking that 3GB is overkill for 1080p, which is the res I game at...will I ever use all that memory if I don't plan to upgrade my monitor anytime soon?

The most framebuffer usage I've seen on my 7950s and 1080P setup, is around 2GBs in Bioshock Infinite and 1.8GBs in Crysis 3. Maybe they spiked higher at points, since I only looked at the graphs after long periods of gaming and the graph was only a few minutes worth of monitoring.

Bioshock Infinite seemed to run admirably on my 570s with ultra textures, despite the huge framebuffer difference. Crysis 3 was another story. So maybe for Infinity I was looking at some heavy caching while in Crysis 3 there was a real framebuffer need for real time rendering.

So taking the 1.8GBs of Crysis 3, as a "real" framebuffer usage and also that Crysis 3 is currently the pinnacle of PC graphics, I'd say that under normal circumstances the 7950 would easily have around two more years before running out of memory, for 1080P, in future AAA titles.

The problem is that the circumstances will not be "normal" by the end of the year, where we will see new game consoles coming, with unified 8GBs of RAM, which could mean that we could see very high video ram requirements in games, by the end of 2014. Surely they will not max the new systems right off the bat.

[Smartazz]

I crossfired my 7950s and something's not right. I usually use MSI Afterburner for an on screen display for gpu temp, usage, etc. The first GPU will load up to 99% just fine, but data on the 2nd GPU is missing, except for GPU load which jumps from 50%-100%. Meanwhile games are totally unplayable due to stuttering. Here's the strangest part, when I disable Crossfire in Catalyst, MSI Afterburner shows all data on both GPUs. Any ideas what's wrong?

[Communism]

Originally Posted by Smartazz

I crossfired my 7950s and something's not right. I usually use MSI Afterburner for an on screen display for gpu temp, usage, etc. The first GPU will load up to 99% just fine, but data on the 2nd GPU is missing, except for GPU load which jumps from 50%-100%. Meanwhile games are totally unplayable due to stuttering. Here's the strangest part, when I disable Crossfire in Catalyst, MSI Afterburner shows all data on both GPUs. Any ideas what's wrong?

Maybe your overclock was unstable after having airflow blocked by the second card and also your case being loaded with at least 10-30w extra heat from the idle 2nd card close to your 1st.

I know I can't get anywhere near my current clocks stably with anything other than my Sapphire Dual-X 7970 Boost plugged in.

[Smartazz]

Originally Posted by Communism

Maybe your overclock was unstable after having airflow blocked by the second card and also your case being loaded with at least 10-30w extra heat from the idle 2nd card close to your 1st.

I know I can't get anywhere near my current clocks stably with anything other than my Sapphire Dual-X 7970 Boost plugged in.

I don't think so. I tried Bitcoin mining on them and they're fine.
edit: I opened up GPU-z and it's the same story. When I disable Crossfire, I see data on both cards, but when I enable it, the 2nd card has all 0s or - for the senor readings.
update: I installed the Crossfire profiles and it fixed performance issues with 3dmark and Unigine. 17K GPU score on 3dmark 11. I still have issues displaying data on the second card though.
another update: Every game I've tried, performance is absolutely abysmal, much slower than a single card, whereas in benchmarks it's amazing. I'm wondering if the card being in a 4x PCI-e slot is causing problems. If it is, then I have to wait until next month to really start using these for gaming in Crossfire. For now, one will Bitcoin mine 24/7.

[psolord]

Originally Posted by Smartazz

I don't think so. I tried Bitcoin mining on them and they're fine.
edit: I opened up GPU-z and it's the same story. When I disable Crossfire, I see data on both cards, but when I enable it, the 2nd card has all 0s or - for the senor readings.
update: I installed the Crossfire profiles and it fixed performance issues with 3dmark and Unigine. 17K GPU score on 3dmark 11. I still have issues displaying data on the second card though.
another update: Every game I've tried, performance is absolutely abysmal, much slower than a single card, whereas in benchmarks it's amazing. I'm wondering if the card being in a 4x PCI-e slot is causing problems. If it is, then I have to wait until next month to really start using these for gaming in Crossfire. For now, one will Bitcoin mine 24/7.

The second card shows zeros because of the zero core technology. The second card drops to an almost non existent state when idle, so the system cannot read its stats properly. If you start a 3d rendering program, like Kombuster, before starting MSI AB, stats will so properly and will keep showing correctly, until you restart your system.

As for the performance issues, I don't have any, running them on a P67 mobo with i5 2500k. Stutter can occur, but I always use vsync for gaming, so it's not an issue for me.

[almightyobo]

got my new system up and running.

ended up choosing the MSI TF3 7950. Glad I chose it! It came with a 7970 pcb and it matches my motherboard exactly!

Will be posting pictures of my black/orange themed build soon. Replaced the PCI slot covers with orange ones and loaded it up with 3x 140mm Cougars (2x intake/1x exhaust) and 1x 120mm Cougar (cpu). Just gotta paint the HDD brackets orange now and she'll be all finished!

[Face2Face]

Originally Posted by almightyobo

got my new system up and running.

ended up choosing the MSI TF3 7950. Glad I chose it! It came with a 7970 pcb and it matches my motherboard exactly!

Will be posting pictures of my black/orange themed build soon. Replaced the PCI slot covers with orange ones and loaded it up with 3x 140mm Cougars (2x intake/1x exhaust) and 1x 120mm Cougar (cpu). Just gotta paint the HDD brackets orange now and she'll be all finished!

Cool Let us know how she overclocks. More specifically the memory..

Post a picture of your rig as well. Sounds cool!

[Fastx]

Originally Posted by Riceninja

the sapphire 2L is now discontinued. i was hoping to crossfire two of the exact same 7950s...

In stock right now if you still want another 2L.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...on%20HD%207950

[BallaTheFeared]

This goes without saying, but don't run two 7950s on a undervolted stock i3-540, you won't even be able to push 50/50 in 3dmark11 graphics tests...

And that's best case >.<




Back to mining!

[Zorander]

Originally Posted by BallaTheFeared

This goes without saying, but don't run two 7950s on a undervolted stock i3-540, you won't even be able to push 50/50 in 3dmark11 graphics tests...

And that's best case >.<

Back to mining!

Talk about serious CPU bottleneck.

[psolord]

Tremendous value for the 7950.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-lis...&condition=new

[Imouto]

Originally Posted by psolord

Tremendous value for the 7950.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-lis...&condition=new

Almost all the info is wrong about that card.

- Picture.
- Amount of VRAM.
- VRAM type.

[psolord]

Yeah I know. I asked to verify it.

The spokesperson from amazon assured me that this was the MSI 7950 and the wrong info was due to a technical glitch. He would ask the product department to correct it.

I don't know why they haven't corrected it yet.

[Imouto]

Originally Posted by psolord

Yeah I know. I asked to verify it.

The spokesperson from amazon assured me that this was the MSI 7950 and the wrong info was due to a technical glitch. He would ask the product department to correct it.

I don't know why they haven't corrected it yet.

There's a huge thread at hotukdeals explaining this is a huge mistake. If you buy it you'll get a GTX 650Ti Boost.