7950 for GF, any particular brands to avoid?

[Essence_of_War]

I'm in the market for a 7950 for my GF, and was wondering if there were any particular brands to avoid? I'd heard that XFX's quality w/ the 7XXX series was somewhat dubious, is that true? Or is that a largely unfounded rumor?

I think she really wants multiple displayports, so I'm leaning towards one of these:
Single-Fan PowerColor
Dual-Fan PowerColor v1
Dual-Fan PowerColor v2
Single-Fan XFX
Dual-Fan XFX

and away from either of these:
Dual-Fan Sapphire Vapor-X
Dual-Fan Sapphire

and I was also making sideways glances at this MSI (due to price) but some of the reviews make it sound like the overall build quality is low:
Single-fan MSI

but I'd really appreciate suggestions/recommendations. Thanks!

Edit: one more constraint, it needs to be 2x6 pin power. I can't do 6+8 due to mac power cable constraints.

 

[Granseth]

I think XFX also have a tendency to use cheap and sometimes poor components, and the cooling sollution was nothing to write home about when the 7950 was released.

Personally I would have gone with a dual-fan sollution.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Personally I would have gone with a dual-fan sollution.

I haven't bought anything yet, so there is still time for me to go with a dual-fan solution

 

[Durvelle27]

avoid single fan cards as they tend to be loud and run hotter. I really don't like XFX cards as they tend to run very hot so i would avoid them at all cost.


Cards i recommend

GIGABYTE GV-R795WF3-3GD Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125414

MSI R7950 Twin Frozr 3GD5/OC Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127667

SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100352VXSR Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202003

 

[Essence_of_War]

Nice, the gigabyte wasn't even on my radar, but it has EVEN MOAR FANS

Any thoughts on the PowerColor options?

 

[Durvelle27]

Nice, the gigabyte wasn't even on my radar, but it has EVEN MOAR FANS

Any thoughts on the PowerColor options?

Not the best qualtiy cards out there. There ok. I would stick to MSi, Sapphire, Gigabyte, ASUS, & HIS IceQ


Why not give her your HD 7870 XT and you get a GTX 770 or HD 7970

 

[jacktesterson]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...C-C8junctionCA

best cooler available without going aftermarket

 

[Essence_of_War]

Why not give her your HD 7870 XT and you get a GTX 770 or HD 7970

It's a wee bit complicated.

Basically, she's using a mac pro, but doesn't care about not having a boot screen as long as 1) i keep the old efi card, and 2) i'm 100% sure os x mtn lion has drivers for he new card.

There is a stuttering video playback issue with old gpus in mtn lion, and she really wants to upgrade but can't unless the issue will be resolved. Her work mac pro has a sapphire 7950 mac edition, and it resolved the video stuttering issue, and also demonstrated that os x 10.8.4 has drivers for the 7950 built in. So I'm being a cheapskate by not shelling out ~500 to get an efi boot screen, but still resolve he video playback/upgrade issue.

 

[SickBeast]

OP try to get a brand with a serial-based warranty so that if you ever sell it the buyer can keep the warranty. It also makes it easier for you to RMA the card if anything goes wrong because you won't need the receipt.

AFAIK Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte all have serial-based RMA processes. I stick to those brands, personally. If you live in a major city you can also try to find out which brands have local depots so you don't have to pay shipping if you need to RMA. Both MSI and Asus have let me do that where I live and it's great.

On top of all that, Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte are the best brands with the best cooling solutions IMO so I would definitely go with one of those three if you can.

*edit* Gigabyte has been locking down the voltage of their cards at the hardware level! Go with MSI. They have consistently shown the most support for the enthusiast community.

 

[Essence_of_War]

SickBeast,

Thanks for the advice, I'll look into the serial warranty. So you wouldn't include Sapphire in your top list?

 

[Stuka87]

Not the best qualtiy cards out there. There ok. I would stick to MSi, Sapphire, Gigabyte, ASUS, & HIS IceQ


Why not give her your HD 7870 XT and you get a GTX 770 or HD 7970

There is nothing wrong with PowerColor. They are technically one of the larger card makers for AMD. The majority of their business is outside the USA however. I have installed a lot of their cards, never had a failure.

 

[SickBeast]

SickBeast,

Thanks for the advice, I'll look into the serial warranty. So you wouldn't include Sapphire in your top list?

Absolutely not. Both them and Powercolor would be a PITA to RMA AFAIK.

Sapphire VGA products carry a 2 year warranty with all enquires carried out through your initial place of purchase. This can only be carried out by the original purchaser Please contact your Dealer/Reseller for Warranty / RMA service. They will require proof of purchase which includes the original invoice/documentation.
Product Warranty will not be valid even if returned after purchased for the following cases:

Products that are defaced or physically damaged and modified by customer.
Products that become non-functional due to customer improper use.
Products that cannot be verified as Sapphire products.
Products that do not have a matching serial number between the product and the original receipt.
Products not sold from our official distributors or resellers.
GPU or ASIC device (VGA) is sensitive to thermal (heat) issue. The heat sink or fan is designed to meet the requirements for reliability of the product and the warranty is rendered invalid if the product is dismantled or the heat sink or cooler fan are removed as this may causes damage to the GPU or ASIC device . Non-compliance will cause the warranty of the product to be void and repair will be at the users cost.
Currently Sapphire does not directly provide any warranty extensions. Please contact your reseller or distributor for any 3rd party warranty extensions that may be available through them. Any extensions provided by the reseller are independent of Sapphire.
All replacement product may include new, reworked or refurbished product and parts.
Any repaired, replaced or exchanged products will be covered for the period of the original warranty.
Sapphire reserves the right to change this policy without advance notice.

 

[Stuka87]

Absolutely not. Both them and Powercolor would be a PITA to RMA AFAIK.

[/FONT][/COLOR]

True the Warranty does not transfer to other owners, but the warranty service is not difficult in my experience. Although it has been quite some time since I had a failure for Sapphire.

 

[XiandreX]

I'm in the market for a 7950 for my GF, and was wondering if there were any particular brands to avoid? I'd heard that XFX's quality w/ the 7XXX series was somewhat dubious, is that true? Or is that a largely unfounded rumor?

I think she really wants multiple displayports, so I'm leaning towards one of these:
Single-Fan PowerColor
Dual-Fan PowerColor v1
Dual-Fan PowerColor v2
Single-Fan XFX
Dual-Fan XFX

and away from either of these:
Dual-Fan Sapphire Vapor-X
Dual-Fan Sapphire

and I was also making sideways glances at this MSI (due to price) but some of the reviews make it sound like the overall build quality is low:
Single-fan MSI

but I'd really appreciate suggestions/recommendations. Thanks!

Edit: one more constraint, it needs to be 2x6 pin power. I can't do 6+8 due to mac power cable constraints.

I own the dual fan V2 powercolor and its well put together and rather quiet.
It has the connectors you need and is reasonable in price.

 

[bigsnyder]

Ditto the first two suggestions from post #4 (The Vapor-X linked only has one displayport). I would also suggest this one:

Sapphire Flex:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202007

Honestly, I see nothing wrong with the Powercolors you suggested. The non PCS AX7950 is probably the best deal with rebate.

My only knock on the MSI TF3 is that I think the cooler has to work a little harder than some others.

 

[SickBeast]

Can I ask why so many of you are recommending Powercolor and Sapphire when they have inferior warranties and weaker cooling solutions? You seem to be backing up one another with suggestions that are plain wrong.

 

[ICDP]

Can I ask why so many of you are recommending Powercolor and Sapphire when they have inferior warranties and weaker cooling solutions? You seem to be backing up one another with suggestions that are plain wrong.

I do agree with this up to a point but while a good warranty is a big plus, it should not be the priority bullet point to meet.

Some of these value brands actually have better PCBs than the "quality" brands. For example Gigabyte have a better warranty than Powercolor, but their 79x0 cards are voltage locked and as such will almost certainly have less flexibility when overclocking.

It all boils down to what each individual considers a priorty. Just because someone picks Powercolor or Sapphire over Gigabyte does not mean they got a bad deal.

Incidentally, I can assure you that to my ears a Gigabyte WF3 cooler is nothing special, the VTX3D (Powercolor) fan was actually far quieter and cooler. Then again, like I said it is all down to individual preference.

 

[Atreidin]

I typically go with names like Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI, but I'm avoiding Asus for everything from now on due to their extremely crappy and adversarial warranty system.

 

[KompuKare]

So aside from BIOS is there any actual difference between the normal PC models and the Mac certified ones?

What I'm getting at is there any way to find a card from an OEM who makes Mac cards and force the BIOS from the Mac version so that you get a display before the driver loads up?

 

[SickBeast]

I do agree with this up to a point but while a good warranty is a big plus, it should not be the priority bullet point to meet.

Some of these value brands actually have better PCBs than the "quality" brands. For example Gigabyte have a better warranty than Powercolor, but their 79x0 cards are voltage locked and as such will almost certainly have less flexibility when overclocking.

It all boils down to what each individual considers a priorty. Just because someone picks Powercolor or Sapphire over Gigabyte does not mean they got a bad deal.

Incidentally, I can assure you that to my ears a Gigabyte WF3 cooler is nothing special, the VTX3D (Powercolor) fan was actually far quieter and cooler. Then again, like I said it is all down to individual preference.

Can you not just flick the BIOS switch to number 2 and then flash an Asus BIOS or whatever to unlock the voltage?

I have heard that the Sapphire cards are the worst for a BIOS mod as they will not work properly with other brands whereas with most cards you can just flash to just about any bios to get more features or higher clockspeeds.

 

[Stuka87]

Can I ask why so many of you are recommending Powercolor and Sapphire when they have inferior warranties and weaker cooling solutions? You seem to be backing up one another with suggestions that are plain wrong.

Yes the warranty is locked to the first buyer, which does not bother me one little bit.

However, the cooling solutions are *NOT* inferior. Test have shown on numerous sites that both PowerColor and Sapphire have excellent cooling on their dual fan cards. I LOVE my Sapphire 7950. Its quiet, its extremely cool, is voltage unlocked, and has performed flawlessly for me.

EDIT: For the BIOS this occurs on any non-reference card in my experience. Reference cards share the same bios. Non reference require their own.

 

[SickBeast]

For someone like me who always sells their GPU, a serial based warranty is a must.

AFAIK both Sapphire and Powercolor are OEM partners with AMD. They used to make all the ATi cards before they were sold off to AMD with all the brand proliferation. I don't think they are bad aside from the warranty service and the cooling solutions that they put on a lot of their cards. Their dual fan setups are probably ok but their single fan solutions can't even cool a 7850 properly, let alone a 7970. My Powercolor 7850 was voltage locked with a huge gob of thermal paste enveloping the core so that the card pretty much constantly ran at 80C with the fan going full tilt while I was playing games. They are one of the only manufacturers that uses the "reference b" coolers; it's very deceptive as you think you're getting a reference card when in reality you're getting something significantly worse that requires aftermarket cooling and a BIOS mod if you can even do that.

 

[Essence_of_War]

So aside from BIOS is there any actual difference between the normal PC models and the Mac certified ones?

My understanding is "No", the only difference is firmware. Firmware is what gives you a boot-screen.

As long as you have appropriate drivers for the card, so that once the OS loads the care is usable, they should work exactly the same way. Sapphire and EVGA's 7950 and 680 mac editions are essentially double the cost for double the firmware .

 

[ICDP]

Can you not just flick the BIOS switch to number 2 and then flash an Asus BIOS or whatever to unlock the voltage?

I have heard that the Sapphire cards are the worst for a BIOS mod as they will not work properly with other brands whereas with most cards you can just flash to just about any bios to get more features or higher clockspeeds.

Simply copying a BIOS from a voltage unlocked card to a locked one does not always work. The Gigabyte WF3 79x0 cards are now being built with no voltage control on the actual PCB. So no amount of BIOS updates will work to unlock your voltage control. So they are 1.25v locked as standard.

WF3 7950 Boost, locked at 1.25v
7950 VTX3D (Powercolour), unlocked voltage, 1.13v standard

Right off the bat it runs cooler and quieter and has the option of going to 1.3v if you want more overclocking potential. Much better than a one year longer warrant or the ability to transfer your warranty when you sell the card.

 

[Jacky60]

I'd also avoid XFX as they have a tendency to take the reference design then replace important components with cheaper ones.