I've had it with this card. Help me choose a new one - XFX 7970

[computerbuildin]

You could easily make a list of the things wrong with this card. Poor me though, thought I did my research and turns out my research was crap picking this one. To name some: Artifacts every now and then, sometimes crashes in games; not often though, awful bios; the bios on this card is locked and you cannot change a single thing to it besides the fan speed/curve. If you did try to change it, it would just flip out and cause a massive fustercluck on your desktop and run awfully until you reset it to stock settings. It is extremely misleading on its ability to mine cryptos, because I can only get max 300 KH/s out of this.
I think the only upside to it is that it can somehow manage to run eyefinity games alone pretty well at like ~40 FPS, but sometimes artifacts every now and then.

It was a bad move on my part picking the card itself, and especially because of the price I paid for it. I've had it for at least a year now though, and it still runs with all those issues even after everything ive tried to change to it. (Also have RMA'd them before and the new ones are exactly the same)

I'm open for any suggestions for a new card that actually can run, and is a good step up from this one. I was looking at the R9 series cards, which are usually good all around for mining and gaming on eyefinity alone. Would you guys suggest a R9 280x or 290x? Again, I'm open to any type and I used to be a major Nvidia guy, so we can also include that in for suggestions too.

 

[DooKey]

I would buy a 290 or 780 and RMA the card again. If you really work the CS at XFX you can get them to send you a UPS label so it doesn't cost you to RMA.

 

[Evilviking]

Rma it again. Don't throw your money away

 

[PliotronX]

I've had nothing but trouble with my Gigabyte 7850 and its BIOS is locked as well. AMD's craptastical drivers don't help any. Personally I'm switching teams to a slight step up in the GTX 770. I don't mine bitcoins which AMD's excel at so it only makes sense. My little GTX 650 in another system overclocks and never flickers the screen or crashes or anything. Just like GPU's used to be before BIOS locks and aggressive power saving causing flickering.

 

[computerbuildin]

Well it's just that it may be too late to RMA this card since I've had this certain one for atleast around a year...

 

[Despoiler]

+1 for Dookey's suggestion. RMA so you can sell the card when it comes back. Then get a non-reference 290 (the x isn't worth the extra price IMO) or 780 if you want to go green.

 

[computerbuildin]

+1 for Dookey's suggestion. RMA so you can sell the card when it comes back. Then get a non-reference 290 (the x isn't worth the extra price IMO) or 780 if you want to go green.

If I can still RMA this then I think that will be the plan.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202080
Also, I think I'm leaning more towards this card. Obviously I'll be doing research first, but that card is on the list.

 

[DooKey]

If I can still RMA this then I think that will be the plan.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814202080
Also, I think I'm leaning more towards this card. Obviously I'll be doing research first, but that card is on the list.

That's a great 290. Good choice.

 

[spat55]

If the BIOS is so bad can't you just flash it with another BIOS? Saying this with a risk of being put into PliotronX sig :/

 

[computerbuildin]

If the BIOS is so bad can't you just flash it with another BIOS? Saying this with a risk of being put into PliotronX sig :/

Yep, you completely can. However. It's sometimes iffy on a compatible bios for the gpu. For most people if they bricked their card flashing it with a incompatible bios, they simply just put the bios switched to 2, which usually means the locked bios. They can then reinstall the backup to bios 1 from there. (its a little deeper than that. my explanation right there is just to give you an idea of how people can get out of a bricked card)

But with my GPU, it doesnt have a bios switch. It has one bios. Even though I dont like this card, I'm not going to take a risk as far as having no GPU until I bought a new one.

Another big reason would be, if you modify the bios like that.. you cannot RMA it. At this point that would be the main reason I'm not going through with flashing.

 

[PliotronX]

If the BIOS is so bad can't you just flash it with another BIOS? Saying this with a risk of being put into PliotronX sig :/

Sorry bud, I am just totally amused by your line but I'll retire it.

So the BIOS.... you would think it would be easy to flash perhaps a bug fixed reference BIOS, maybe better memory timings or better steps in the power savings settings..... NO. Not a single goddamn BIOS works on my Gigabyte besides the stock one, not even Gigabyte's BIOS versions for the same model. Either it won't boot Windows or Windows "can't find drivers" for it after flashing. I've been a longtime fan of ATI dating back to the 8500/9700 but this has me disenfranchised.

 

[Vesku]

Sorry bud, I am just totally amused by your line but I'll retire it.

So the BIOS.... you would think it would be easy to flash perhaps a bug fixed reference BIOS, maybe better memory timings or better steps in the power savings settings..... NO. Not a single goddamn BIOS works on my Gigabyte besides the stock one, not even Gigabyte's BIOS versions for the same model. Either it won't boot Windows or Windows "can't find drivers" for it after flashing. I've been a longtime fan of ATI dating back to the 8500/9700 but this has me disenfranchised.

If Gigabyte's own BIOS versions don't work, doesn't that imply some sort of hardware fault with your card?