Which 7950 to buy? (Gigabyte WF3 or Sapphire 950 / Vapor-X)

Well, 75c is alot higher then 70, and also now with lower voltage/clocks. What i recommend is to use fan @75% for long gaming session.What 7950 you got is it 950 core version?

@ ebduncan, Gigabyte WF and Asus DCII V2 are a different story, they have amazing cooling Sapphire cards are around 70/75c regarding maximum clocks (~1150/1500) and voltage over 1.15, at this settings, you can't get the core lower then 70c on air, even with fan on 80% i'm talking about more then 30 mins gameplay, with tons of AA/mods and downsampling, not games that run @90 fps....
 
psyside said:
Well, 75c is alot higher then 70, and also now with lower voltage/clocks. What i recommend is to use fan @75% for long gaming session.What 7950 you got is it 950 core version?

@ ebduncan, Gigabyte WF and Asus DCII V2 are a different story, they have amazing cooling Sapphire cards are around 70/75c regarding maximum clocks (~1150/1500) and voltage over 1.15, at this settings, you can't get the core lower then 70c on air, even with fan on 80% i'm talking about more then 30 mins gameplay, with tons of AA/mods and downsampling, not games that run @90 fps....
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Yea not sure why Heaven doesnt really stress the GPU as much as I thought. Maybe BF3 had higher temps since the CPU was around 75c.

Also I had the fan on Auto when I played BF3. With heaven I kept it at 75% fan speed.

This is the Sapphire I picked up.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202006
 
My card does the same thing.

I can run OCCT or Furmark or Heaven at 1250/1850, but in games I can only do ~1200/1800.

Also,

@psyside: My Vapor-X can easily go under 70c without fans maxed @ 1200/1800.
 
45454asasa said:
My card does the same thing.

I can run OCCT or Furmark or Heaven at 1250/1850, but in games I can only do ~1200/1800.

Also,

@psyside: My Vapor-X can easily go under 70c without fans maxed @ 1200/1800.
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Fans at max is not really easily, what voltage your using?
 
1.137v core / 1.606v memory for 1200/1800

Custom fan profile rarely reaches 65% when gaming - but in furmark, 65% fan = 68c on the core.

I should note that the first and last 20% of the fan % have next to no effect on the RPMs, so realistically this is 75% fan speed if I did the math right...
 
Ok, now try the same clocks, but this time on 1.15/1.15+v on core, (like i said in the previous post) and tell me the temps then.
 
ar1fF.jpg


Temps & proof.

This is also in a Cooler Master Stacker 830 with very poor airflow.

Even if you give it one more degree [which it doesnt appear to be hitting], 65c @ 73% fan AKA ~88% fan.
 
Well its very close to 70c anyway, plus your testing at low resolution.

Point is Sapphire and other 7950 cards, have inferior cooling compared to Gigabytw WF and Asus DCII, with that cards you can go to even 1.25v and still be under 70c which is the most you want to go on 79xx cards regarding good stability, things start to get bad over 70c.

What is your ASIC quality?
 
psyside said:
Well its very close to 70c anyway, plus your testing at low resolution.

Point is Sapphire and other 7950 cards, have inferior cooling compared to Gigabytw WF and Asus DCII, with that cards you can go to even 1.25v and still be under 70c which is the most you want to go on 79xx cards regarding good stability, things start to get bad over 70c.

What is your ASIC quality?
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I dont think Resolution matters as long as the GPU is at 99% load when it comes to temps.
 
psyside said:
Well its very close to 70c anyway, plus your testing at low resolution.

Point is Sapphire and other 7950 cards, have inferior cooling compared to Gigabytw WF and Asus DCII, with that cards you can go to even 1.25v and still be under 70c which is the most you want to go on 79xx cards regarding good stability, things start to get bad over 70c.

What is your ASIC quality?
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64c rounded to 65c = 70c? How does that work? This is also furmark, so higher temps than I get in games. I can run bitcoin miner at 1275/1.149v @ 54c.

Also, resolution shouldnt matter in furmark, as DASHIT said. Load is all that matters. Its drawing 475w versus 120w idle, so I think its doing a fine job stressing the card.

ASIC is 86.8%
 
Nevermind, i'm sorry i miss-read it :)

Guess your card kind of special, i got 5 friends with 7950 and all of them are around 70/70+c at the settings i pointed.
 
DASHlT said:
just remember to switch the bios switch to 2. I guess 1 doesnt let you overclock all that well.
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What exactly are you referring to when you say "switch the bios switch to 2."? Where do you do this? I have one of the Sapphire Dual-X cards that I'm trying to OC and it seems that I'm not able to adjust the voltages at all.
 
erf said:
What exactly are you referring to when you say "switch the bios switch to 2."? Where do you do this? I have one of the Sapphire Dual-X cards that I'm trying to OC and it seems that I'm not able to adjust the voltages at all.
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There is a Bios switch on the Video card itself. Bios 1 and 2. Bios 1 for me, didnt let me unlock voltages.

Once I switch to bios 2, I was able to go past 1200mv, and get 1200 on my 7950.
 
DASHlT said:
There is a Bios switch on the Video card itself. Bios 1 and 2. Bios 1 for me, didnt let me unlock voltages.

Once I switch to bios 2, I was able to go past 1200mv, and get 1200 on my 7950.
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Yeah, as soon as I posted my question I Googled it...haha. I switched to bios 2, bumped my voltage up, set core at 1200, ran 3dmark11, got the 10k score I wanted and then set my clocks to 1125/1425 which will be what I use for gaming. Yay. These cards are nice!
 
spinejam said:
Brand-spanking new MSI 7950 TFIII here -- just installed tonight: :)
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And this is why TFIII and WF are the best 7950's fans at 50-55% huge core/memory oc, 1.175v and yet only 71c as max, *uck me :cool:

Can you please post link of the exact model?

Also can you repeat the test with fans on 70% and 1.25v? i want to see how effective the cooling is, i'm aware that you don't need so much voltage, but just to see thanks.


m3ta1head said:
Beat me by 12 points, well done! I don't think I can push my core any higher...
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Lower the memory to 1750, it should raise your score, i think ECC is kicking in, no way he should beat your score.
 
Last edited:
Looks like my Sapphire 7950 950mhz edition died. :( PC doesn't boot anymore with that videocard.
 
psyside said:
Lower the memory to 1750, it should raise your score, i think ECC is kicking in, no way he should beat your score.
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Actually, it looks like spinejam is running his 2600K at 4.8Ghz compared to m3ta1head at 4.6GHz if their signatures are correct so I would expect his score to be slightly higher as is the case. I don't think it has anything to do with the video card memory or ECC. These benches aren't completely GPU dependent, the CPU still plays some role.
 
psyside said:
Well its very close to 70c anyway, plus your testing at low resolution.

Point is Sapphire and other 7950 cards, have inferior cooling compared to Gigabytw WF and Asus DCII, with that cards you can go to even 1.25v and still be under 70c which is the most you want to go on 79xx cards regarding good stability, things start to get bad over 70c.
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I've been saying this for the last two to three months but the Sapphire naysayers have been arguing with me about it. I had a Sapphire 7950 950 model and it wasn't cool running by any means, it was actually quite hot when overclocked. At 1050-1100MHz, it was always 72-74c under load even with the fans at 60% which was certainly audible and it would reach 80-81c under load in Witcher 2 and the fans would hit 70-80% which was not quiet at all.
 
Blkout said:
I've been saying this for the last two to three months but the Sapphire naysayers have been arguing with me about it. I had a Sapphire 7950 950 model and it wasn't cool running by any means, it was actually quite hot when overclocked. At 1050-1100MHz, it was always 72-74c under load even with the fans at 60% which was certainly audible and it would reach 80-81c under load in Witcher 2 and the fans would hit 70-80% which was not quiet at all.
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Must be a lot of variation between their cards... as I showed mine runs pretty cool on the last page.
 
45454asasa said:
Must be a lot of variation between their cards... as I showed mine runs pretty cool on the last page.
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Yea same with mine. And with a 120hz monitor. My GPU is always pegged at 99% when I game now, and i rarely gets over 70C if I put the fans at 65-70%.

Also helps that I have great cooling in my case too.
 
psyside said:
And this is why TFIII and WF are the best 7950's fans at 50-55% huge core/memory oc, 1.175v and yet only 71c as max, *uck me :cool:

Can you please post link of the exact model?

Also can you repeat the test with fans on 70% and 1.25v? i want to see how effective the cooling is, i'm aware that you don't need so much voltage, but just to see thanks.





Lower the memory to 1750, it should raise your score, i think ECC is kicking in, no way he should beat your score.
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Per your request: this is the same card -- two 3DMark11 runs w/ voltage @1149mV / 1250mV.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us




Uploaded with ImageShack.us
 
XTF said:
Looks like my Sapphire 7950 950mhz edition died. :( PC doesn't boot anymore with that videocard.
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Bummer. :(

What have you done to trouble shoot it? What PSU do you have? Have you tried it in a different system? Did you switch to other BIOS?

If you have to RMA it good luck.
 
Just switched out my Corsair Vengeance @1600Mhz for some Samsung Green 1600Mhz DDR3 overclocked @2133Mhz. (4x4gb)

Corsair 1600Mhz DDR3:



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Samsung DDR3 @2133Mhz:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us
 
45454asasa said:
Agreed. That is very impressive.

Not sure why the WF3 is so good though... just a regular heatsink isnt it?
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Even better cooling then TFIII AFAIK, and if you can keep this cards under 65-70c your golden, i'm talking about oc scaling with huge voltage, my card for example cant stand more then 1.17v i mean it works and all but the vrms go to 95c and i think it does affect the stability alot if your card is not very good overclocker.
 
DASHlT said:
Yea same with mine. And with a 120hz monitor. My GPU is always pegged at 99% when I game now, and i rarely gets over 70C if I put the fans at 65-70%.

Also helps that I have great cooling in my case too.
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65-70% fan speed isn't quiet at all though, sure wasn't on my Sapphire 7950 950MHz model. And Witcher 2 would cause the card to go up 8c over any other game, which ran the temps up to 80c and fan speed up 80%.
 
psyside said:
My fan is dead silent, even on 70% same Sapphire 7950 950 core.
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That's great that you don't hear it, I guess my hearing is far more sensitive to fan noise. Coming from a completely water cooled setup I'm spoiled on silence. If you can't hear your Sapphire 7950 running at 70% fan speed, you would think my PC isn't even running.
 
i suppose its also dependant on your case, and where its physically located as well.

I have a Corsair 600T under my desk, and even at 100% my dual-X fans are barely audible...
 
SonDa5 said:
Bummer. :(

What have you done to trouble shoot it? What PSU do you have? Have you tried it in a different system? Did you switch to other BIOS?

If you have to RMA it good luck.
Click to expand...

Didn't try the other BIOS. Did try it in a Asus H61 / Pentium G620 system and a Asus Z77 / 3570K system. PSUs are Antec 500W and Be Quiet 400W. It's RMAd already.
 
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