MSI TwinFrozr III HD7950 3GB / Sapphire 7950 VideoCard + Sleeping Dogs - $318 Newegg

[RussianSensation]

Either my MSI TF3 card is a stellar low-voltage overclocker, or this chart is very conservative. I've settled on 1.012v at 1075 core. I can go lower volts or higher clocks with occasional glitches, but this combo is solid. Noise and temps are extremely good.

1. The early 7950 TF3 cards used 6+6 pin power connector, the later versions switched to 6+8 and 28nm node matured a bit.
2. I didn't email the author directly but maybe they made a mistake and read those voltages off MSI Afterburner rather than off GPU-Z / HWInfo64 sensors. The target voltage and actual voltage on 7950/7970 differs at times. This could explain how they were applying 1.275V into the 7950 TF3, while we know at actual voltage the cooler/VRM heatsink probably wouldn't be able to deal with such a high real voltage #.

lemme guess there is a 50 import fee or something if you buy it in the U.S.?

1 CAD = 1.01462 USD

I don't understand why it's going for $275 CDN and you guys get it for $315. That's a 14.5% price difference.

 

[Zorander]

I had a WF3 7950 for about 2 months, bought on release. Idle, to me, was inaudible. I used it in 2D idle mode for about a week before I went with a full water cooled loop, so I can't speak on load noise.

I snagged a WF3 7950 for AUD$299 + shipping. Not sure if the store made a pricing mistake or if it was doing a special discount as they should fetch some $50 higher. There was too much price gap between it and the Sapphire model for me to ignore.

Out of curiosity, what sort of overclock can I expect to get on stock voltage?

 

[The0ne]

Can anyone suggest a similar card but with 2 DVI's? I like to drive both my 30" if possible. These are the old Dell 3007 so not displayport, just DVI.

Edit:

Actually, I was planning on getting the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H motherboard and I believe the DVI-D can drive one monitor while the card drives the other. Anyone tried this?

 

[Auric]

Can anyone suggest a similar card but with 2 DVI's? I like to drive both my 30" if possible. These are the old Dell 3007 so not displayport, just DVI.

Edit:

Actually, I was planning on getting the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H motherboard and I believe the DVI-D can drive one monitor while the card drives the other. Anyone tried this?

DP to DVI adapters are five dollah shipped so no need to limit card options.

 

[Mir96TA]

Can anyone suggest a similar card but with 2 DVI's? I like to drive both my 30" if possible. These are the old Dell 3007 so not displayport, just DVI.

Edit:

Actually, I was planning on getting the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H motherboard and I believe the DVI-D can drive one monitor while the card drives the other. Anyone tried this?

I think there is some thing Funky going on with 79XX they all seems to have a Single D-DVi and other bunch of DP and HDMI (Limited to 1080 res per port)

 

[RussianSensation]

Out of curiosity, what sort of overclock can I expect to get on stock voltage?

1100-1125mhz at 1.175V (actual stock Tahiti XT voltage) in GPU-Z or HWInfo64, anything above that may require a voltage bump to 1.20V. Your card may not ship with 1.175V actual voltage though so 1050-1100mhz is probably likely if it's undervolted. Some guys get 1150mhz on stock voltage, but it depends what your actual stock voltage is.

Can anyone suggest a similar card but with 2 DVI's? I like to drive both my 30" if possible. These are the old Dell 3007 so not displayport, just DVI.

Edit:

Actually, I was planning on getting the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H motherboard and I believe the DVI-D can drive one monitor while the card drives the other. Anyone tried this?

I am not sure if the SB/IVB CPU supports 2560x1600 out of the integrated graphics. At that point, you may just as well get a GTX670 I think. It should work very well driving 2x 30 inch monitors.

 

[The0ne]

The 670 was the plan to drive both my LCDs til I saw this post and thought about the cost savings, that is until I saw one DVI connector. As for the motherboard the specs does state driving up to 2560x1600 but like you guys I'm skeptical since it's IGP. I have time so I'm in no rush. The parts are on wishlist at newegg while I keep checking hot deals

 

[RussianSensation]

You can have a card with dual-DVI such as Sapphire FLEX series but they won't be dual dual-link DVI which is what you need to drive 2 30s off DVI only.

There is another reason I don't recommend 7950 over 670 for dual monitors: power consumption. Check out the power use for 660Ti/670 for watching Blu-Ray or working with 2 monitors in idle:
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti/14/

I guess you gotta look out for a $330-350 deal on a 670 card

 

[Zorander]

1100-1125mhz at 1.175V (actual stock Tahiti XT voltage) in GPU-Z or HWInfo64, anything above that may require a voltage bump to 1.20V. Your card may not ship with 1.175V actual voltage though so 1050-1100mhz is probably likely if it's undervolted. Some guys get 1150mhz on stock voltage, but it depends what your actual stock voltage is.

I've seen 1100+mhz figures thrown around here but I guess it never truly dawned on me how much of an overclock they are over the stock 800mhz speed. Damn!

I'm not likely to overclock it (lower heat output over my 6970 being the priority) but it's always good to know I have the option to do so when needed. I'm aware the 670 would have been a better option for me but $299 vs $438 (the lowest price I could find in Australia) is impossible to ignore.

Cheers!

 

[RussianSensation]

The heat and power consumption really increase exponentially with a voltage increase. If you just raise the clocks at stock voltages, there won't be a huge negative effect on noise levels and power consumption. You should try going to 1050-1100mhz. It's fast and easy

Once you do it, you'll wonder why you never bothered in the first place! Also, the reason I recommend after-market 7950/7970 cards is because they can actually handle overclocks without adversely impacting noise levels or temperatures. 1100mhz should be a walk in the park for all of these after-market 7950 cards.

 

[diggi]

I'm thinking about picking up either a vapor X or an MSi TF3 and slap an Antec 620 on it(see link below) and OC it Hoping to get 1200+ , which is the better overclocker or should I be looking at another model/brand? It seems the Vapor x is voltage locked or am I wrong



http://www.overclock.net/t/1203636/official-amd-ati-gpu-mod-club-aka-the-red-mod

 

[RussianSensation]

If you are going to watercool the card with such a mod, then go for the MSI TF3 card since it comes with highly binned 7950 chips and the only thing limiting its overclocks is the air cooling solution. Alternatively, this Sapphire 7950 Dual-X should also be very good for such overclocking. If you are going for max overclocks, I wouldn't buy the Vapor-X since it already comes with 1.212V on the GPU, while the Sapphire DX 7950 and especially MSI TF3 have > 85% binned 7950 chips that are factory undervolted.

If you actually need to go out and buy an enclosed water cooler though for $50-60, then might as well get an HD7970 and overclock it on air (unless you just want the fun of overclocking the 7950). If you get a 7950 that won't overclock much past 1200mhz, you end up with a slower card than an air overclocked 7970 and end up spending a similar amount of $.

 

[diggi]

I already have a the Antec 620 I got it for $33 IIRc after MIR so I'll use that to cool the GPU and put a Fan on the VRMs using a bracket so In this case either the MSI or the Dual X would work?

If I wanted to step up to a 7970 with the same setup what would be the recommendation not too big a fan of the Gigabyte windforces

Thanks

 

[philipma1957]

I like the xfx models fans are quiet. I have 3 for 24/7/365 bitcoin.


this is the one I have 3 of.



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o06_s00_i00

 

[RussianSensation]

I already have a the Antec 620 I got it for $33 IIRc after MIR so I'll use that to cool the GPU and put a Fan on the VRMs using a bracket so In this case either the MSI or the Dual X would work?

You are going to take the actual heatsink off the 7970 though right?

In that case, it wouldn't make a huge difference other than memory speed overclocking.

XFX 7950/7970 PCB
Sapphire Dual-X 7970 PCB
Gigabyte Windforce 3x 7970 PCB
Sapphire Vapor-X PCB

The 7970 cards cost substantially more though. So unless you are bitcoin mining or just want the best performance, then you can save your $ and get a 7950.

I like the xfx models fans are quiet. I have 3 for 24/7/365 bitcoin.

Really? I personally haven't heard any good things about those XFX cards, especially I heard the opposite that they run hot and loud.

Not sure how the XFX7970 is quiet since it can't even keep a 7950 chip cool and quiet, nevermind a full fledged 7970. Yours must be running at stock speeds or lightly overclocked?

 

[philipma1957]

underclocked a little as they give me the best watt to hashrate at about

.9 volts and 875 mhz.

 

[diggi]

Yeah I'll take off the cooler and strap on the 620, any coil whine with the MSi??
Actually I want to get into Bitcoin mining but my analysis using the profit calculator shows the 7950 will break even quicker than a 7970 even though in the long term the 7970 will make more coin.

 

[RussianSensation]

Ya, the 7950 will break even much faster, especially if ButterFly Labs ASICS enter the bitcoin network soon then there is less risk involved with the 7950. I cannot guarantee no coil whine on any videocard on the market other than those which use upgraded power circuitry/solid state chokes. Even some of those cards including the MSI Power Edition still exhibit coil whine despite Military components. Coil whine can also be caused by a particular PSU + GPU combination while that same GPU paired with another PSU may not have coil whine. Thus it's a pure gamble unless you go for the Sapphire Vapor-X on the 7950 side.

Pretty much any GPU from NV or AMD is not guaranteed to not have coil whine unless the card has upgraded components like the Lightning, Vapor-X or Asus Direct CUII series.

 

[diggi]

So based on all this do you still recommend MSi over Vapor X then?

I'm using an Antec HCG 750

 

[spinejam]

Just got this 7950 TFIII from newegg: (7970 pcb)

still testing...



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

[exar333]

The heat and power consumption really increase exponentially with a voltage increase. If you just raise the clocks at stock voltages, there won't be a huge negative effect on noise levels and power consumption. You should try going to 1050-1100mhz. It's fast and easy

Once you do it, you'll wonder why you never bothered in the first place! Also, the reason I recommend after-market 7950/7970 cards is because they can actually handle overclocks without adversely impacting noise levels or temperatures. 1100mhz should be a walk in the park for all of these after-market 7950 cards.

Got my twin frozr and here are a few observations:

OC at stock voltage was anemic. Went no higher than 895mhz with stock voltage settings. Ran VERY quiet at stock voltage though.

Tested almost all voltage settings up to around 1.1v and got it mostly stable at 1100mhz. Ran games fine, but would crash every couple hours on the heaven benchmark. Dialed the voltage and speed down to 1050/1.06v and it was rock solid. That's a solid 19% OC.

I didn't even mess with the memory speed TBH, as most reviews stated that didn't matter a whole lot. I was using this in a build for someone else that is using 1080P...

Great deal at the price, but I was honestly hoping to get a little more out of a small voltage tweak. The card started getting pretty loud above 1.05v, otherwise I would have kept trying for a higher OC. I'm sure it was capable, but a balance between noise and performance is important to me.

Wouldn't hesitate to recommend this over a 670, which is at about $75+ more with comparable performance.

 

[RussianSensation]

So based on all this do you still recommend MSi over Vapor X then?

I'm using an Antec HCG 750

If you are going to use the stock cooler, Vapor-X is good simply because of the lower Noise levels. The same applies to Gigabyte Windforce 3x 7950 or Sapphire Dual-X 950mhz 7950. If you are going on water, there isn't much reason to spend extra on the Vapor-X over Sapphire Dual-x 950mhz or MSI TF3 7950 I feel. At that point it will come down to binning of the chip. MSI TF3 7950 sounds perfect for water simply because it comes out of the box with low voltages as ExarKun333 noted. If you have water, you can go from 1.05-1.1V on the MSI TF3 7950 and all the way up to 1.25V (because that's at least the minimum safe limit for Tahiti XT chip). The Sapphire Vapor-X TechPowerUP tested used only 0.98V to hit 950mhz. Although I have read that other samples ship with 1.2-1.212V on the Vapor-X 7950. It also seems like luck of the draw. On the positive side you don't have to send in a rebate for the Vapor-X, but you do with Windforce 3x, TF3 and Sapphire Dual-X. MSI and Gigabyte have 3 year warranty vs. 2 for Sapphire cards. That's something that may matter to you or not.

At 1135 MHz GPU clock, HD7950 is the fastest single-GPU this generation (of course I know you can overclock 670/680/7970 cards but they cost more):

The main advantage of Vapor-X is a strong cooler and black diamond chokes to remove coil whine. Personally because you plan on going water, what you want is as low as possible GPU voltage out of the box. MSI TF3 seems to have an excellent track record for this. You may want to ask any of the guys in this thread if they put TF3 under water and if they were able to reach 1250-1300mhz on it @ what voltage?

 

[Disconnect]

A warning to those interested in the Twin Frozr from Newegg- they are still shipping cards with the 7950 PCB. Mine just arrived, and it struggles to reach 1GHz at under 70C (1.081V). I suspect they sent a used card since the box was dented and the heatsink had a small scratch.

Is it worth trying for an exchange? Very disappointed

 

[RussianSensation]

Oh that's unfortunate! Does the fan get much louder above 70*C on the TF3? Can you add more voltage than 1.08V? If the heatsink had a scratch, you should just contact them and let them know you think you got a used card. That's not right.

 

[chocobaR]

A warning to those interested in the Twin Frozr from Newegg- they are still shipping cards with the 7950 PCB. Mine just arrived, and it struggles to reach 1GHz at under 70C (1.081V). I suspect they sent a used card since the box was dented and the heatsink had a small scratch.

Is it worth trying for an exchange? Very disappointed

I received a 7950 PCB also. Booted up with blue lines on the screen. Had to turn off then turn back on the monitor to get them to disappear. Sluggish performance in the same games I played with my GTX 460 at the same settings. Also some stutter. GTX 460 did 60 FPS at low settings in Guild Wars 2. My 7950 did 50. Don't know what was wrong with the card I had. Defective and/or bad drivers? I RMAed it the next day. Disappointed.