Looking at getting a 7950 (Aussie)

[kero1990]

G'day,

I'm looking at getting a new card, preferably a 7950 as I heard it's pretty good value/performance.

My current build:
i5-2500k
4GB RAM (getting it up to 8GB)
standard HDD's
Antec ATX TruePower 750W

I'm looking to buy a card from umart.com.au and I'd like opinions on getting an already factory OC'd 7950 card or just a stock standard one and OC'ing it manually.
I don't plan on doing any fan/cooling modifications to it either.

What card is the best 7950?

If you don't want to go to the website, these are the 7950's in question.
Going from cheapest to most expensive.

Power Colour AX7950-3GBD5-2DHV2 HD7950,3G DDR5,DVI,HDMI,2XminiDISPLAY,800 Mhz, [2] Outofstock $299.00 $309.00
Power Colour HD7950,3G DDR5,DVI,HDMI,2XminiDISPLAY,OC TO 900Mhz Instock $317.50 $327.02
Gigabyte ATI HD7950 3GB GDDR5 Instock $325.00 $335.00
Sapphire ATI HD7950 OC 3GB GDDR5 2MDP/HDMI [1] Instock $325.00 $335.00
MSI ATI HD7950 OC 3GB GDDR5 2MDP/HDMI Instock $329.00 $339.00
Asus ATI HD7950 3GB - $339.00
Sapphire ATI HD 7950 VaporX-OC w BOOST PCI-E 3.0 3GB GDDR5 Instock $347.50 $357.50
Sapphire ATI HD 7950 WITH BOOST PCI-E 3.0, 3GB 384-bit GDDR5, Base: 850 Boost: 925/5000 Mhz, DV Instock $349.00 $359.47
Sapphire ATI HD7950 3GB GDDR5 2MDP/HDMI [1] Instock $355.00 $365.00

 

[raghu78]

Get the Gigabyte HD 7950. the windforce 3x cooler is one of the best and easily handles voltage overclock speeds of 1.2 Ghz.

 

[Rikard]

How important is noise to you? Silent cards usually comes with a premium. If you have no evidence that the OC version cooler is better than the non-OC I would just go for the cheaper of the two.

 

[kero1990]

How important is noise to you? Silent cards usually comes with a premium. If you have no evidence that the OC version cooler is better than the non-OC I would just go for the cheaper of the two.

I'd rather the card to be reasonably quiet.

 

[Rikard]

I'd rather the card to be reasonably quiet.

Powercolor PCS+ is known to be the quietest 7950 on market, but I dont think that is what is listed in your first post. But check it since that could be a great deal. Asus, which also isnt listed is cool and quite, but not an option for you with that store. I heard good things about the Gigabyte and the MSI but at least the MSI is not very quiet. People here on the forum have been complaining a lot on the noise from Dual X Sapphire cards, and they are overpriced in that store anyway. As it happens I am waiting for the Sapphire Vapor-X which is known to be both a good overclocker and silent, but I will let you know once I get it. For me the Vapor-X was cheaper than the Gigabyte and the MSI so it was a no brainer.

 

[kero1990]

Just added Asus 7950 to the list, found it at a different store.

 

[Zorander]

I have the Gigabyte 7950 (bought it for $299 from UMart myself). It is quiet at idle and barely noisy at load (I use 700-800rpm fans for case and CPU fans, for my system background noise). Definitely what I class as quiet card.

One thing I noticed is its default VCore is rather low and I cannot hit more than 950MHz core speed. I haven't yet played around with upping the VCore though so the card most likely can go much higher.

 

[Rikard]

Just added Asus 7950 to the list, found it at a different store.

My mind was set on the Asus but they do not come with a game bundle in Switzerland, and in France their prices are insanely inflated compared to all the other brands, and in Germany just forget it. In addition read this:
http://www.behardware.com/news/12153/asus-hd-7950-directcu-ii-fault-report.html
I think that is the real reason why they later made the v2 version of the cooler, but they have been very quiet about it, so I would not take my chances with the first cooler version.