7950 or 7970?

[TakeNoPrisoners]

Get a reference 7970. They tend to be a little higher quality then the non reference models.

 

[blastingcap]

Got Sapphire 7970 OC Dual-fan model today. Weirdly enough it did not say "OC" on the box, but the default clock was 950 anyway.

Can't seem to get MSI Afterburner or ASUS GPU Tweak to overclock it past 1125. I could undervolt to about 1.075V before losing stability, which kind of sucks. (Stock voltage is 1.112V.)

Card is noisier than my 7850 Sapphire OC model, but not too bad. I couldn't hear anything unusual like coil whine, but while in 2D mode about 10 minutes after installation of drivers/etc., it rebooted my system. I stress tested with 3D stuff, and it didn't reboot my system. Go figure. I guess it just needed to be broken in, because it's been stable for the last hour now.

Temperatures are in the low/mid 60's after gaming and Unigine, can get up to 70C with "power virus" testing like OCCT.

When overclocked and running stuff like OCCT, it can draw over 17 amps. When overclocked and running Unigine it draws about 10.5-11 amps, with spikes up to 12.

Finally with Eyefinity I can get the card to hit 99% utilization in games. Previously I couldn't quite hit 99% in most games with just one 1080p panel.

 

[Zanovar]

Got Sapphire 7970 OC Dual-fan model today. Weirdly enough it did not say "OC" on the box, but the default clock was 950 anyway.

Can't seem to get MSI Afterburner or ASUS GPU Tweak to overclock it past 1125. I could undervolt to about 1.05V before system crash. (Stock voltage is 1.112V.)

Card is noisier than my 7850 Sapphire OC model, but not too bad. I couldn't hear anything unusual like coil whine, but while in 2D mode about 10 minutes after installation of drivers/etc., it rebooted my system. I stress tested with 3D stuff, and it didn't reboot my system. Go figure. I guess it just needed to be broken in, because it's been stable for the last hour now.

Temperatures are in the low/mid 60's after gaming and Unigine, can get up to 70C with "power virus" testing like OCCT.

When overclocked and running stuff like OCCT, it can draw over 17 amps. When overclocked and running Unigine it draws about 10.5-11 amps, with spikes up to 12.

Finally with Eyefinity I can get the card to hit 99% utilization in games. Previously I couldn't quite hit 99% in most games with just one 1080p panel.

Flick bios 2,take it from there.

 

[blastingcap]

Flick bios 2,take it from there.

Hmm perhaps. I am more concerned about how it just rebooted in 2D though... I am going to leave my PC on for a while and let it idle to see if the ZeroCore Power or whatever is the problem.

 

[Zanovar]

Hmm perhaps. I am more concerned about how it just rebooted in 2D though... I am going to leave my PC on for a while and let it idle to see if the ZeroCore Power or whatever is the problem.

Good to hear you didnt get any coil noise though:thumbsup:,i just got unlucky with mine i think.

 

[blackened23]

Got Sapphire 7970 OC Dual-fan model today. Weirdly enough it did not say "OC" on the box, but the default clock was 950 anyway.

Can't seem to get MSI Afterburner or ASUS GPU Tweak to overclock it past 1125. I could undervolt to about 1.075V before losing stability, which kind of sucks. (Stock voltage is 1.112V.)

Card is noisier than my 7850 Sapphire OC model, but not too bad. I couldn't hear anything unusual like coil whine, but while in 2D mode about 10 minutes after installation of drivers/etc., it rebooted my system. I stress tested with 3D stuff, and it didn't reboot my system. Go figure. I guess it just needed to be broken in, because it's been stable for the last hour now.

Temperatures are in the low/mid 60's after gaming and Unigine, can get up to 70C with "power virus" testing like OCCT.

When overclocked and running stuff like OCCT, it can draw over 17 amps. When overclocked and running Unigine it draws about 10.5-11 amps, with spikes up to 12.

Finally with Eyefinity I can get the card to hit 99% utilization in games. Previously I couldn't quite hit 99% in most games with just one 1080p panel.

Hmm, past 1125 usually requires more voltage, you'll probably want 1.175 or more or 1.2. You'll need manual fan with that high of a voltage, BIOS 2 may also help. BIOS 2 has higher voltage settings and a default clock of 1000.

 

[blastingcap]

Two ways to extend clocks

1) With afterburner, create desktop shortcut using the -xcl argument. Will prompt for reboot. After restart, you will have extended clocks

2) With ASUS gpu tweak 2.06 or later, install, reboot, then hit "advanced". Then click tuning. Then click "extend overclock range". Then hit apply. Reboot.

I would highly suggest afterburner 2.2 final. You can use gpu tweak to extend clocks but msi afterburner has many more features,....you can junk gpu tweak after you extend clocks (uninstall it)

BIOS 2 also has a default clock of 1000.

Thanks I'm gonna try that -xcl method!

Edit: It worked!

 

[wand3r3r]

The Sapphire dual-fan 7950 is just as good as the Twin FrozrIII at cooling, and also significantly quieter. Look at what happens when you overclock both of them (scroll down to the thermal images and mouse over the "overclock" text; then repeat for the other card):

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/853-11/sapphire-radeon-hd-7950-overclock-test.html

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/853-7/msi-radeon-hd-7950-twin-frozr-iii-test.html

They also noted how quiet the Sapphire fans are compared to others, including the Twin FrozrIII 7950 which is anywhere from several to a few decibels louder than the dual-fan Sapphire 7950.


Thanks. And yeah that's a good idea to wait a day if you can.

MSI 7950 TWIN FROZR
1200 / 1775 MHz @ 1.275V : 251W
91.1 85.7 degrees

SAPPHIRE 7950 OC
1175 / 1725 MHz @ 1.225V : 246W
87.0 88.2 degrees


These two particular cards required different voltages. The saphire maxed out at 1175@1.225v while the msi maxed out at 1200@1.275v. While the difference isn't significant, as voltage increases heat increases more rapidly so if they were both @1.225v the conclusion would be more clear. They aren't that far apart, but I would say the they are about a tie (vs. a clear winner). Anyways that was a good comparison, the only reason I'd still prefer MSI is the warranty.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

That is why I recommend a reference 7970 with arctic cooling
1175 1.168v 1625 stock core temps sub 60c gaming load vrm temps exceed 100c by quite a margin though, however that doesn't happen to everybody and vrm temps sub90-100c are perfect

And this is not even close to my max if I want more adventure. And I am not even talking of water. Just my vrms scare me from trying further. But that aside I can manage at least 1230 with around 1.2

 

[Upgrade_Itch]

I don't think a memory overclock over 1500 on an HD7970 yields any framerate increases, it just adds more heat retention to the ram embedded. It may yield a higher benchmark score but won't affect fps. The core oc will continue to scale accordingly (affects frames) to very high numbers but requires a constant increase of voltage...

I'm not gonna add much voltage to the card I get, I'm not much of a benchmarker....I just oc so I can maximize eye candy at 1920 x 1080 on a single monitor.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

At 1080p even a 1000 1500 7970 is way more than enough with very rare exceptions unless you are an Aa hog, which means 8x plus

 

[Upgrade_Itch]

Sold my treadmill this morning, looks like the HD7970 OC it will be!


I'll be happy with bios 2 engaged, 1050 core, 1450 ram...................

 

[aaksheytalwar]

A core i5 with 7950 will give a better experience, smoothness, minimums, longer life etc

 

[Upgrade_Itch]

Haswell cpu will be quite a bit better then this crop of IB.....

Onto the subject of Radeon HD7970's! Lots of 7970 Newegg customers and scores at the Hard boards ALL complaing about 7970 and coil whine. They are glazing CLEAR NAIL POLISH on capacitors and chokes!!!!


I'm hearing no such issues with the 7950's....but almost EVERY 7970 seems to experience it.

If a GTX680 becomes available at MSRP price point on Wed I'm leaning that way......IF NOT...the HD7950 seems the least likely to "coil whine."

 

[skipsneeky2]

My old 7970 had a coil whine when loading some games....was a msi reference design.

Op if you got the coin,heck the gtx680 would be a good option but i hope you got some spare time pressing f5 finding on in stock on the newegg.

Once in a while i may pay as much as $50 extra if no one refuses to buy that one last single card on a shelf...i did that with my 7970,i found it to be worth it over battling the thousands of other raging nerds going to war over stock at MSRP.

Terrible yields with Kepler this time around.

 

[Upgrade_Itch]

I'll take a 5-10% performance hit to escape coil whine anyday, lol. Those 680's are easy to dismiss, nobody ever has any.

 

[blastingcap]

Hold off for another hour if you can and maybe a gtx 670 will be your best bet: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/its-coming-countdown/

 

[skipsneeky2]

Hold off for another hour if you can and maybe a gtx 670 will be your best bet: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/its-coming-countdown/

I got a feeling its gonna be the gtx685 or the gtx690,i am betting more towards a gtx685.

35 mins or so and the world will know,to much anticipation for it to be anything less then a gtx685,whatever it is,its gonna be godly.

 

[GroktheCube]

I'm debating between the Sapphire 7950 OC and 7970 OC at the moment. I'm kinda leaning towards the 7950, because the performance looks to be similar OC vs OC when all is said and done. I'm going to wait on the nVidia announcement though. I don't expect anyone to have stock for a month or two, but AMD might adjust prices down again.

 

[toyota]

I got a feeling its gonna be the gtx685 or the gtx690,i am betting more towards a gtx685.

35 mins or so and the world will know,to much anticipation for it to be anything less then a gtx685,whatever it is,its gonna be godly.

I think there is no chance of a big Kepler being called gtx685. that big chip will have several cut down versions so what would they call them if this the gtx685? and no way would they have it called the gtx780 at this point as gtx680 as that would just be odd. I think most logic points to this being a gtx690 with dual gk104.

 

[stag3]

lol i ordered my sapphire7970 on wed, amazon STILL hasn't shipped
i still got time to cancel the order and go with nvidia if it's something sweet

 

[skipsneeky2]

I think there is no chance of a big Kepler being called gtx685. that big chip will have several cut down versions so what would they call them if this the gtx685? and no way would they have it called the gtx780 at this point as gtx680 as that would just be odd. I think most logic points to this being a gtx690 with dual gk104.

Yeah,it could very well be the gtx690.

Wonder who is crazy enough to justify such a beast,i know if i even had one,i would have to sell it,for a 1080p resolution its a absolute waste.

Last dual gpu card i owned was a BFG gtx295 and its the only nvidia gpu i ever hated so i vowed to never purchase another one.

 

[blastingcap]

lol i ordered my sapphire7970 on wed, amazon STILL hasn't shipped
i still got time to cancel the order and go with nvidia if it's something sweet

Ordered my Sapphire OC 7970 from Amazon on Tuesday and got it on Friday with free super saver shipping, not even Prime. But on the other hand they took so long to deliver the HIS 7970 that it gave me time to cancel it and replace the order with the Sapphire instead. So their dragging their feet benefited me this time. Maybe it will benefit you too, if NVIDIA comes out with something tonight that you want more.

 

[stag3]

how are you liking it so far?

 

[blastingcap]

how are you liking it so far?

It's fine. No problems so far and it's 100% compatible with Afterburner 2.2 + Catalyst 12.3 apparently. Even voltage. Haven't tried Cat 12.4 yet and don't want to try until I have to... if it ain't broke, don't fix it.