Next Video Card Advice Please

maxinflixion

maxinflixion

Gawd
Joined
Apr 2, 2007
Messages
625
I am currently running a Radeon HD7950 3gb.

The main reason I want to upgrade is efficiency and noise.

As long as the card has even a modicum of improvement performance-wise, I am ok. I just want something quieter that pulls less power.

Does anyone have suggestions?
 
He wanted less power use, not more. :)

There´s nothing in the market that would exactly fit that criteria.

960 is bit too weak outside 1080p, but it has a low power use.
970 is reasonably more powerful, but uses somewhat more power (and there are few models with awful fans so beware those).
380 uses similar amount of power but is only slightly better in performance outside tesselation.

If I were you, I would hang on to your card until next year. Downvolt it and find a stable downclocked state for it. Then build a quiet fan profile. You will be surprised how much you can reduce the power use without hitting your FPS much. Then next year, buy a new card with a chip that is made with FinFET process and uses mature HBM 2.0 stacks.
 
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Pretty sure the 970 uses less power than 7950, what are you talking about? do you even lift bro?
 
a3venom said:
you just proved yourself stupid, linking r9 280 vs a 7950.
it's like linking a 390x when someone asked a question about 290x etc.
970 uses less power than 7950 and your lack of knowledge wont change it, sorry,.
Click to expand...

Sorry you are the one lacking the knowledge.... do you even do any research?Power consumption charts

Nvidia claims and talks about having a target of 150w, but in reality its closer to 200w depending on board. In no situation do I see the 970 drawing less power than the 7950 though.

EDit: So OP, it's pretty much what Zorlag said. There's not really any card more powerful that's the same power or less unfortunately.
 
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Which 7950 do you specifically have? What is it's vcore and clockspeeds? Have you modified it at all (clockspeeds or power limits)?

If he has a later boost edition Gigabyte 7950 it could be voltage locked at 1.25v which would make it have much higher power consumption than the launch references models.

In terms of straight power consumption though I don't think you are going ot gain much by going to a GTX 970. Noise possibly depending on the specific board and it's heatsink.

The only real significant drop would be going to a GTX 960 4GB .
 
i dont think thats a good upgrade... going from 3Gb to 3.5GB card makes no sense....
 
Samson4EiT said:
Sorry you are the one lacking the knowledge.... do you even do any research?Power consumption charts

Nvidia claims and talks about having a target of 150w, but in reality its closer to 200w depending on board. In no situation do I see the 970 drawing less power than the 7950 though.

EDit: So OP, it's pretty much what Zorlag said. There's not really any card more powerful that's the same power or less unfortunately.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. Seems like the OP isn't going to find a solution unless he's willing to run a slower GPU.
 
a3venom said:
you just proved yourself stupid, linking r9 280 vs a 7950.
it's like linking a 390x when someone asked a question about 290x etc.
970 uses less power than 7950 and your lack of knowledge wont change it, sorry,.
Click to expand...

"Hurr durr AMD sucks, nothing new, their whole lineup are rebrands!"

"7950 is NOT a 280, they're totally different, you're stupid bro."

a3venom said:
Pretty sure the 970 uses less power than 7950, what are you talking about? do you even lift bro?
Click to expand...

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-970-oc-mini-itx-review,7.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/885-nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-gtx-980/page7.html

Pretty sure you're WRONG.
 
I hope he has a model that can be downvolted. I have R9 280 here myself and I managed to make my room considerably less toasty by simply going into basic 280 settings which is 850 core and dropped the voltage as low as it went.

And I apologize for my inappropriate tone. I hope e3venom can do the same for me. Deal? I need to practice what I preach more carefully from now on and keep out of these silly word fights.
 
^ it's all good man, i am just internet gangsta.
but you are right on downvolt, i do that to my r9 290 and it uses 180 peak on GPUZ while it would do over 220 earlier.
 
But when i said the 970, it is because it uses more or less the same power and is rated much lower, and is a significant upgrade in terms of perf for the OP.
a 960 will be a sidegrade at best.
 
maxinflixion said:
I am currently running a Radeon HD7950 3gb.

The main reason I want to upgrade is efficiency and noise.

As long as the card has even a modicum of improvement performance-wise, I am ok. I just want something quieter that pulls less power.

Does anyone have suggestions?
Click to expand...

If you're going for efficiency, wait for the next generation of cards.
 
a3venom said:
^ it's all good man, i am just internet gangsta.
but you are right on downvolt, i do that to my r9 290 and it uses 180 peak on GPUZ while it would do over 220 earlier.
Click to expand...

What did you use to undervolt it with? How low where you able to go and how much lower did you have to underclock it?
 
ManofGod said:
What did you use to undervolt it with? How low where you able to go and how much lower did you have to underclock it?
Click to expand...

MSI Afterburner to UV, i can go upto -50mv with stock clocks and - 38mv with 1000/1300 (which i used)

I flashed the 390 bios with modded mem volts on another instance and my AB shows 1.17 voltage in the overlay while gaming - and i am at 1010 / 1500 on this particular bios. ( this is the one i really like to use )
 
limitedaccess said:
Which 7950 do you specifically have? What is it's vcore and clockspeeds? Have you modified it at all (clockspeeds or power limits)?

If he has a later boost edition Gigabyte 7950 it could be voltage locked at 1.25v which would make it have much higher power consumption than the launch references models.

In terms of straight power consumption though I don't think you are going ot gain much by going to a GTX 970. Noise possibly depending on the specific board and it's heatsink.

The only real significant drop would be going to a GTX 960 4GB .
Click to expand...

My current card is a Gigabyte GV-R795WF3-3.

I would prioritize noise over power consumption in my needs list.
 
maxinflixion said:
My current card is a Gigabyte GV-R795WF3-3.

I would prioritize noise over power consumption in my needs list.
Click to expand...

You are running all stock?

What you can do is try to adjust vcore lower and then using a custom fan curve with something like MSI Afterburner. You can then ride this out until the second half of next year.

In terms of a real "fix" the only option at the moment is the GTX 960 but that you aren't going to, out side of specific cases, get any real performance gain (may be lower as well depending on work load).

In terms of purely noise then this does open up more higher end options, assuming your airflow setup can overall handle the additional heat load, as some of the newer custom solutions are improved even with higher power consumption cards.
 
Do not jump from 3 to 3.5GB.
Get a card with a big performance boost that only eats a bit more wattage.
980, 980ti, r390X.
 
^ Exactly, .5 gb is not a good upgrade.
I had 270x 4gb and upgraded(sidegraded) to a GTX 980 4GB, no noticable difference in games and i wasted so much money.
More GB = Better
 
a3venom said:
^ Exactly, .5 gb is not a good upgrade.
I had 270x 4gb and upgraded(sidegraded) to a GTX 980 4GB, no noticable difference in games and i wasted so much money.
More GB = Better
Click to expand...
Whatever you must be smoking should be good if you are unable to discern difference in games between a 270x and a 980.
 
KickAssCop said:
Whatever you must be smoking should be good if you are unable to discern difference in games between a 270x and a 980.
Click to expand...
The sheer outlandishness of the statement--in light of the informed tone of his earlier posts, along with the repetition for punchline effect--might imply the aim of being sarcastic.
 
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