Radeon HD 7950 Owner's Thread

[AtenRa]

 

[Rikard]

Still not over 10K though...

The difference looks reasonable now IMHO given that your OC is a wee bit lower than mine.

 

[lehtv]

What. The. Shit.

AtenRa, your score is 10 fps higher on Heaven than mine.

And yes, this is with 3770K @4.2GHz and 7950 @ 1100/1250 @ PCIe 3.0 x16 using the same drivers. GPU clocks and load stay where they should be during the bench.

EDIT. Here's my GPU-Z shot:

The 250MHz memory OC couldn't possibly account for this, could it? I can see how the difference in 3DMark scores is probably due to the different memory clocks... but this is just too big of a difference

 

[AtenRa]

How do you OC the card ??? what program do you use ??

I use the ASUS GPU Tweak but,

I have found out that in Heaven, the OC from the GPU Tweak doesn't work, i had to OC through AMDs CCC as well in order for the OC to work in Heaven.

 

[lehtv]

MSI afterburner. I'll try with CCC as well. But as I said, the card maintains the 1100MHz clock and 99% GPU use throughout the test according to both GPU-Z and Afterburner, I can't imagine how it could the score could be any different with a different program.

It might be worth it to compare the cards at stock settings (850/1250)

 

[lehtv]

This looks more like it:

I had RadeonPro in the background and hadn't realized that it had a global profile conflicting with the CCC settings. It was overriding all application settings with 8xMSAA and 16xAF. Although Heaven uses these same modes, it apparently doesn't like being force-fed them

 

[Rikard]

lehtv, you'd better OC with increments of 50 MHz (for starters) up and down and see how the scores change. With my card I found that I could OC higher, and while my average score increased, my minimum decreased. There is no point in OC-ing to the point where you actually lose performance, and if you did not pay attention that could be what happened to you.

It might be worth it to compare the cards at stock settings (850/1250)

Absolutely!

Edit: Great that you solved it! Posted while I was typing

 

[raasco]

I hope to join in on the fun this weekend. Just ordered a Twin Frozr 3.

Edit: Hope it comes, looks like it just went OOS.

 

[Zargon]

my card is starting to stuggle to do OC's over 1GHz for extended periods of time without me getting serious artifacting in BF3 and PS2

I might order another, and try to RMA the one I have now, not sure how that will go since I have ran it over 1ghz for a significant amount of time

 

[3DVagabond]

my card is starting to stuggle to do OC's over 1GHz for extended periods of time without me getting serious artifacting in BF3 and PS2

I might order another, and try to RMA the one I have now, not sure how that will go since I have ran it over 1ghz for a significant amount of time

Not to insinuate you don't care for your card, but have you tried cleaning it? Dust can get pretty deeply imbedded in the heat sink and just blowing it out wouldn't be enough to clear it.

 

[Rhoxed]

Just got a Sapphire 7950 Boost Dual-X today, will run benches asap, going into 1090T rig.

 

[steeb0z]

Just got a 7950 Vapor X w/ boost and I can't seem to get anything to run at all with the boost bios enabled (950mhz clock). Everything crashes either immediately or within 10 minutes of play. I tried lightly OCing (1050 core) right out the box with some benchmarks but I could only get Just Cause 2 to run. Did I get a bad card?

I'm relatively new at this. VDDC also appears to be .950 stock but shows up differently depending on which app I run. At first it seemed like the card would downclock to 500mhz and cause the crash but I'm not so sure anymore. I'm using the latest beta drivers. Ideally I'd like to get at least a 100mhz oc over the boost bios if I can..

 

[lehtv]

My Vapor-X had voltage control joined with power limit, so the power limit controlled the active clock speed and also determined whether that clock speed was stable. I'm guessing you should increase power limit to get the 950mhz clock stable... but that still doesn't mean the card should crash with the boost bios and stock power limit, it should just downclock to 850mhz when necessary. So yeah it sounds like a bad card to me...

Is it completely stable at 850/1250?

 

[3DVagabond]

Just got a 7950 Vapor X w/ boost and I can't seem to get anything to run at all with the boost bios enabled (950mhz clock). Everything crashes either immediately or within 10 minutes of play. I tried lightly OCing (1050 core) right out the box with some benchmarks but I could only get Just Cause 2 to run. Did I get a bad card?

I'm relatively new at this. VDDC also appears to be .950 stock but shows up differently depending on which app I run. At first it seemed like the card would downclock to 500mhz and cause the crash but I'm not so sure anymore. I'm using the latest beta drivers. Ideally I'd like to get at least a 100mhz oc over the boost bios if I can..

What are your system specs and did you have any other apps running in the background?

 

[Zargon]

Not to insinuate you don't care for your card, but have you tried cleaning it? Dust can get pretty deeply imbedded in the heat sink and just blowing it out wouldn't be enough to clear it.

I havent taken the heatsink off no

I was under the impression that would tank my warranty, it has seen 100PSI off my compressor though, and I try and keep the filters on bottom on the machine clean(Raven-02)

 

[steeb0z]

What are your system specs and did you have any other apps running in the background?

i5 2500k @ 4.3 ghz
8gb ddr3
256gb samsung ssd

Sleeping Dogs would give me driver crashes after about 30 minutes of play too. Between the instability, heat and sound (god was it loud) I'm completely fed up. Nothing else in the background. Trixx and MSI were reporting different voltages from stock .950 and 1.188. I emailed Sapphire about a new bios because apparently there's an issue with the VaporX that causes it to downclock with the boost enabled, but whatever. The standard bios was fine from what little I tried it but the whole point was to buy it and OC. It would seemingly crash during downclocks to 850 and 500mhz and increasing power limit at stock boost clock still didn't give me stability. Driver changes didn't help.

I sent for an RMA this morning. I'll probably pick up a 670 instead. Now I just need to decide which one to go with..

 

[lehtv]

You just got unlucky with the 7950. I don't see a reason to switch to 670. Just get another 7950, you should be able to get a refund for the current 7950 since you just bought it. My Sapphire vapor-x was a dud as well but my current sapphire dual-x works great

 

[steeb0z]

You just got unlucky with the 7950. I don't see a reason to switch to 670. Just get another 7950, you should be able to get a refund for the current 7950 since you just bought it. My Sapphire vapor-x was a dud as well but my current sapphire dual-x works great

You're probably right, but as I said before the noise and the heat alone is something I don't want to put up with and a shorter card is more suitable for my small case. I'm pretty happy with Nv anyway. Newegg is offering me a full refund so that's nice.

 

[lehtv]

Hm. The noise and heat with my Sapphire aren't a problem at all. I have a very quiet Fractal R3 setup with four fans downvolted to 5V. The 7950, overclocked to 1100Mhz on stock volts and using the stock fan profile, stays below 75C at all times - both the GPU and VRMs. The fan noise isn't bad though I do use headphones while gaming.

A 670 will be more expensive and slower than an overclocked 7950, and it won't really be much quieter or cooler if you OC it.

 

[Zargon]

You're probably right, but as I said before the noise and the heat alone is something I don't want to put up with and a shorter card is more suitable for my small case. I'm pretty happy with Nv anyway. Newegg is offering me a full refund so that's nice.

Im not sure you are going to find a 670 that is noticably quieter than the sapphire, unless there was something SERIOUSLY wrong with the 7950 you had

 

[SonDa5]

As promised:

Never mind the mess, or the bad focus for that matter

Can you take the heat sink off and post photos of PCB? I have seen or read of 4 different versions of the Vapor X HD7950. Some photos of PCB will help to determine all the differences of your card. I'm thinking of getting one if it is built on reference HD7970 PCB.

Could you please get your HD7950 BIOS up for download? I'd like to try out your BIOS.

I have a Sapphire HD7950 950mhz Edition that is built on HD7970 reference HD7970 PCB and it is a monster.

X3901
Sapphire HD7950 950mhz Edition 1325/1800

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5070771

 

[tommiyacht]

one question. Core voltage set to 1.2v in Afterburner or Trixx (mod version) and Gpu-z shows arround 1.15v. Which one is closer to real ?

 

[lehtv]

Can you take the heat sink off and post photos of PCB?

You realize you're asking him to void the warranty of the card?

 

[Rikard]

I was AFK for a week, sorry for the late reply.

Can you take the heat sink off and post photos of PCB?

You realize you're asking him to void the warranty of the card?

This. I am not going to do anything of the sort on a card that works perfectly... I can take pictures with the heat sink still on (with a real camera this time) if it helps.

Could you please get your HD7950 BIOS up for download? I'd like to try out your BIOS.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0ByOuTpzWy3ajUlczTEJnaTR4SjQ
Let me know if the link does not work

 

[makken]

Hi guys,

I have a Sapphire 7950 on order that's set to arrive tomorrow (Monday). I've read through this thread, and have some questions.

The card I ordered is the 100352-2L.

The card doesn't explicit state that its boost enabled, like this one, but it does list a "boost frequency" in the specs. So does the card I have on order include boost or not?

If it is boost enabled, when I overclock it, am I adjust the boost state, or the normal state?

If I am in fact adjust the boost state, does it affect when the card will choose to enter boost state? (ie. if I set a too high OC, will the card never enter a boost state?)

If I'm adjusting the normal state, and I adjust it to higher than the boost state of 925Mhz, Will the card disable boost altogether, or will it actually downclock to enter a boost state of 925Mhz?

Thanks, looking forward to playing with this thing.