New MSI 7950 Twin Frozr 3 PCB

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FaRKle0079

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Just a heads up guys, MSI has started using reference 7970 PCBs for their 7950 Twin Frozr 3 OC cards. Every review on the net (and all the ones I've seen on YouTube) show this model to use the reference 7950 PCB.

Much to my dismay I ordered Aquacomputer 7950 blocks from Germany along with two 7950 Twin Frozr 3's from Amazon and found out today that the blocks don't fit since they're made for the reference 7950 PCB. I hope nobody else gets misled by the current info on the net and makes the same mistake as I.

Here's my PCB:
MSI_7950_TwinFrozr3_PCB.jpg


TPU Reference 7970 PCB:
front.jpg


TPU 7950 Twin Frozr 3:
front.jpg


Hexus 7950 Twin Frozr 3:
InsideB.jpg
 
Thanks for the heads up and I hope you work out your block fitting problem.


The new HD7950 TF3 PCB looks great.

How do the new cards over clock?


ASIC score?

Any details.

High res photos? What kind of voltage control chip is on it?
 
SonDa5 said:
Thanks for the heads up and I hope you work out your block fitting problem.


The new HD7950 TF3 PCB looks great.

How do the new cards over clock?


ASIC score?

Any details.

High res photos? What kind of voltage control chip is on it?
Click to expand...

Voltage controller is the CHiL CHL8228G, same as the reference 7970 and 7970 GHz Ed.

Memory is Hynix/Hyundai H5GQ2H24MFR-T2C (1.5V, 5Gbps/1250MHz), the 7970 has H5GQ2H24MFR-R0C (1.6V, 6Gbps/1500MHz) , and the 7970 GHz Ed. has H5GQ1H24AFR-R0C (1.6V, 6Gbps/1500MHz).

Surprisingly, it seems that the GHz Ed's RAM is an older part number and has less density than the regular 7970's ram (MFR parts are 2Gb density and AFR parts are only 1Gb density).
 
FaRKle0079 said:
Voltage controller is the CHiL CHL8228G, same as the reference 7970 and 7970 GHz Ed.

Memory is Hynix/Hyundai H5GQ2H24MFR-T2C (1.5V, 5Gbps/1250MHz), the 7970 has H5GQ2H24MFR-R0C (1.6V, 6Gbps/1500MHz) , and the 7970 GHz Ed. has H5GQ1H24AFR-R0C (1.6V, 6Gbps/1500MHz).

Surprisingly, it seems that the GHz Ed's RAM is an older part number and has less density than the regular 7970's ram (MFR parts are 2Gb density and AFR parts are only 1Gb density).
Click to expand...



Thank you.


Looking at my Sapphire 950mhz Edition HD7950 do you know which VRM design is better ?

Mine.

VRMHD7950mhzvertical.jpg



What are all the little CXXX parts? Mine has more than yours.

Just trying to figure out which card is made better.

Yours has more red capacitors which I think are better and yours has 1 extra VRM than mine.

Looking forward to seeing how yours over clocks and how BIOS flash friendly yours is.
 
Looking at my Sapphire 950mhz Edition HD7950 do you know which VRM design is better ?

What are all the little CXXX parts? Mine has more than yours.

Yours has more red capacitors which I think are better and yours has 1 extra VRM than mine.
Click to expand...


Your card has one less phase than mine (notice the missing inductor/choke and two power MOSFETs). C on a pcb usually denotes capacitor, and it's possible Sapphire could try to mitigate the effect of one less power phase by adding more capacitors. The color of the capacitors probably has more to do with their values, which would likely be a function of the number of power phases, rather than "better or worse." Theoretically my PCB should be able to deliver more stable power to the GPU, but how much that affects OCing has yet to be seen, and also isn't really quantifyable without plucking the GPU die off of the PCB and placing it in another PCB with one less power phase.
 
Farkle0079 you are a pioneer with this card. Please fire up your cards with the stock heat sinks and see what kind of GPU-Z ASIC scores they have. See if you can run it at 1200mhz on stock voltage. What kind of temps with stock cooling?

I might buy one of these but I would like to know how it performs. Since you have 2 of them your results with each will be helpful to see how consistent the performance is. I don't want to buy it if it is a gimped HD7970 that was not worthy of the HD7970 title.



I'm running 1300/1600 with 1.22v on my Sapphire 950mhz edition. Water cooled GPU only block MCW82-7900.
 
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I bought one of these recently and I've played around with it a little bit, but haven't really tried to overclock much yet. It seems to be a well built card but I haven't taken it apart, or watercooled it yet. (Currently still deciding if I want to take the plunge into water.)

My ASIC Quality via GPU-Z 0.6.2: 89%

Settings it is stable at using 12.7 beta. (Haven't unlocked more than 1100mhz on afterburner's slider, or played around much with the memory.) The mv numbers are what I set in afterburner, GPU-Z reports the VDDC to be ~60mv lower under full stress (bitcoin miner)

900MHz at 920mv (Uses like 100 watts over idle here, pretty low power)
1080MHz at 1031mv (stock voltage)
1100MHz at 1050mv (didn't try 1040mv).

Two interesting things to note:
From newegg reviews: Some people report their cards showing 2048 in certain configurations which makes me wonder a bit, haven't tried any flashing yet.
With dual monitors core idles at 500MHz unless I set the memory to be <= 1200MHz.
 
Just as a mini update to the power/cooling.
At 900MHz at 920mv, my total computer powerdraw while bitcoin mining is 250 Watts. I can do ~460 Mhash/s.
At 1100MHz at 1050mv, the power draw is 350 Watts. I can do ~560Mhash/s.

Here are some cooling numbers, but they are semi-accurate, as my ambient temp fluctuates noticeably, (Windows ac unit, hot summer). I'm !guessing! that my ambient temp is ~80F (27C).

Load temps at 900MHz are ~67C, with the fan on auto (~59%).
Load temps at 1100MHZ are ~78C, with the fan on auto (~79%). Noise starts to be noticeable.

Final things to note:
My room is a bit on the warm side.
My computer has decent ventilation, but not great.
Seems like this cooler can handle normal speeds quietly, but at more overclocked speeds you will hear it when at full load.

It's important to note that these aren't gaming temperatures, game load may be significantly lower depending on the game, I've seen load temps in WoW at 900MHz in the medium 50s C.
 
Anymore results on these? Kinda curious to see what they hit with more volts. Seems like the ones I have seen so far do at least 1100 MHz on stock volts.
 
JS thanks for posting your results. Any more over clocking results?
 
Minor update. Applied my own TIM to the card to see if I could lower the temps. Didn't really end up changing the temps at all (At most 1C lower). The TIM that I used wasn't anything amazing, I used some Thermalright TIM that I knew wasn't conductive, just in case. Was my first time applying TIM to a video card, so there is a chance I botched it, but I'm guessing it was fine.

The old TIM looked like this (Phone pic):
2012-07-13_11-24-03_177.jpg


Which doesn't seem to be too bad, I may try to apply some better TIM in the future, but doubt it will change too much.

As for some extra overclocking, I downloaded TRIXX, since unlocking afterburner was causing me some issues, and I don't want to figure it out at this point. Initially, I set the voltage to 1100mv in TRIXX, I crashed around 1150Mhz. Upon restarting (For some reason when using trixx, the video driver doesn't just 'gracefully' crash and restart with kombustor not working like it does in afterburner. Otherwise I would have done more testing, just didn't feel like restarting over and over again) I set the voltage to 1200mv, and set the MHz to 1200, but once again it crashed.

The VDDC in GPU-Z was showing closer to 1100mv than 1200mv when I set it to 1200mv in trixx, if that means anything.

Looks like this card isn't as amazing of an overclocker as the Sapphire 950MHz editions. I think I'm going to pick up some watercooling parts in the next couple of weeks, including a gpu block, and I'll see how it works from there.
 
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JS_ said:
Minor update. Applied my own TIM to the card to see if I could lower the temps. Didn't really end up changing the temps at all (At most 1C lower). The TIM that I used wasn't anything amazing, I used some Thermalright TIM that I knew wasn't conductive, just in case. Was my first time applying TIM to a video card, so there is a chance I botched it, but I'm guessing it was fine.

The old TIM looked like this (Phone pic):
2012-07-13_11-24-03_177.jpg


Which doesn't seem to be too bad, I may try to apply some better TIM in the future, but doubt it will change too much.

As for some extra overclocking, I downloaded TRIXX, since unlocking afterburner was causing me some issues, and I don't want to figure it out at this point. Initially, I set the voltage to 1100mv in TRIXX, I crashed around 1150Mhz. Upon restarting (For some reason when using trixx, the video driver doesn't just 'gracefully' crash and restart with kombustor not working like it does in afterburner. Otherwise I would have done more testing, just didn't feel like restarting over and over again) I set the voltage to 1200mv, and set the MHz to 1200, but once again it crashed.

The VDDC in GPU-Z was showing closer to 1100mv than 1200mv when I set it to 1200mv in trixx, if that means anything.

Looks like this card isn't as amazing of an overclocker as the Sapphire 950MHz editions. I think I'm going to pick up some watercooling parts in the next couple of weeks, including a gpu block, and I'll see how it works from there.
Click to expand...


The Swiftech GPU only block is the one that I have the works very well but my Sapphire HD7950 950mhz edition has a very well designed VRM and memory heat sink that much better than the heat sink that is on your TF3 HD7950.


This is my stock RAM and VRM heat sink which is two separate pieces which isolates heat from each other and has fins.

SapphireHD7950950mhzEvramheatsink.jpg


This could be part of the problem with over clocking your card.

My card is stable 1300/1600 with 1.22v on gpu.


I really would like to see these new TF3 cards over clocked to 1300mhz core levels with proper cooling. I still think it is a great card but the TF3 definitely has a weakness with that weak stock PCB heat sink design.
 
yeah, the cooler seems to be a bit of a weakness. perfect for stock, but less so for overclocked. I'll post some new numbers when I get better cooling.
 
Been following this thread for a while now (new member here!) and can verify my recently ordered msi 7950 did come with 7970 pcb as well. Some guys on Newegg are reporting seeing 2048 shaders but mine on gpuz only reports 1792, is there a reason for this? Also my gpuz score is 86% and can confirm very similar overclocks to JS.

JS how are you overclocking past the 1100cc limit on AB? I've been reading around and haven't found a clear working and stable solution. Thoughts?
 
miken7 said:
JS how are you overclocking past the 1100cc limit on AB? I've been reading around and haven't found a clear working and stable solution. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

I haven't passed 1100 on AB, I tried one of the methods, but afterburner wouldn't set clockspeeds for me after it. I used Sapphire's TRIXX for my one foray above 1100.
 
I just cancelled my order for one of these. Looks like a great card but I haven't seen any of them over clock well.

Might order one later on after more information is available.

Looking forward to reading about how this card performs with water cooling.
 
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I just placed an order. Price dropped another $10 on Newegg too. I'll report back my results as I need something to tweak with. If it doesn't prove to be worthwhile I'll just sell it off.

Sonda yours went back up in price instead of dropping lol (there was price cuts today on AMD cards). Wtf
 
xBanzai89 said:
Sonda yours went back up in price instead of dropping lol (there was price cuts today on AMD cards). Wtf
Click to expand...

It is a good over clocker. I'm running 1300/1600 with 1.22v. Mine is water cooled.


I like the MSI brand better and the TF3 card has 1 more power phase so I think it may have some extra power available but my card may be designed a little better with all the little small capacitors soldered onto the card. I haven't seen any other HD7950s with a HD7970 pcb and all of the little capacitors soldered onto the PCB and the PCB heat sink on my card is very nice.


I have had some very fast MSI cards. My Sapphire is a keeper for now. I came close to ditching the sapphire for this MSI card. I'd really like to give the MSI TF3 HD7950 a go in my rig and see how well I could over clock it but I think
i got lucky with my card because it over clocks well and I don't want to risk getting a MSI card that may not over clock as well. I was all ready to get rid of my Sapphire card and had a MSI card on order for a week. (back order at Amazon.)

Based on current pricing the MSI TF3 HD7950 from Newegg is a super hot deal with the 3 game coupon as a bonus. Best deal around.
 
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SonDa5 said:
Based on current pricing the MSI TF3 HD7950 from Newegg is a super hot deal with the 3 game coupon as a bonus. Best deal around.
Click to expand...

I'm pleased to hear that because that is the card I recently purchased. I am now looking forward to finding out if my card will have one of these 7970 PCBs.
 
I just got my card. It seems to do at least 1050mhz without touching the voltage. I tried upping the voltage and overclocking but the cooler really can't keep up.

I just picked up a second card and I'm really debating water cooling these cards. Would a single 320 be enough for two of these cards?
 
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BababooeyHTJ said:
I just picked up a second card and I'm really debating water cooling these cards. Would a single 320 be enough for two of these cards?
Click to expand...

A single 120x3 would be plenty for two OC'd graphics cards.

I'm putting my FT02 together today and tomorrow. Hopefully I'll have some OC numbers up this week. I'm still waiting for my GPU waterblocks so you'll get some stock cooler OC numbers. One of the GPUs is completely stock, and the other has the TIM replaced with NT-H1. It'll be interesting to see the difference.
 
A 360 rad should be plenty for two cards, if you are including a cpu in there, a 360 rad may limit over clocking a bit, depending on what kind of fan speeds you use/ the specific rad.

I ordered my watercooling parts yesterday, and half of it has been shipped so far, so I tentatively should have it put together over the next weekend. However, my case will require some moderate modification to fit my rad, so there is a chance it could take a bit longer.

Ended up ordering these core parts, hopefully it's all worth the investment (worth being relative, it is a hobby after all)

MCP35x
XSPC Raystorm
Aquacomputer 7950/70 full cover block
Alphacool 45mm 480 rad

Edit: UPS seems to troll me, says it expects the delivery to be Monday, aka take an entire week, so it may be two weeks until it is put together.
 
This card is the best high end card in terms of bang for buck. With a high quality HD 7970 PCB you are really getting a lot of hardware for very less money. Anybody interested in a USD 300 - 375 card should look at the MSI HD 7950 OC, Gigabyte HD 7950 (best cooler imo) or the Sapphire HD 7950 950 Mhz edition.
 
I seem to be maxing out at 1175 regardless of voltage. I tried 1.22V with 1200MHz and I'm getting glitches in 3DMark11. Going to mess it with more later. I was hoping for anything above 1150MHz personally, so I guess I'm happy.

EDIT: Well I find 1150MHz on the core is stable at 1.15V. Although even at 1175 MHz with going up to 1.2V I begin to notice the graphical glitches on Heaven. Doesn't occur till around 75 C though. This is with the fan maxed at 100%, case open with a box fan going to get fresh air in there, and my ambient is around 80 F. Makes me wonder if it was the middle of winter or if I had water cooling if it would improve the clocks at all.
 
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I'm with Sonda, got the cheapest powercolor 7950 and have gotten it up to 1320/1800 with an EK waterblock. Sounds like the issues with the twin frozr are only cooling related if you're only seeing issues at the 75C mark.

I'm having issues with multiple runs of Heaven actually getting lower scores. Some I talk to have mentioned it might be a component that the block isn't quite cooling, and that's causing the card to clock itself down. Afterburner never get's above 50 though, so it must be a sensor that's not reported if that is indeed the case.

Basically at 1300/1800 I got one score, bumped up to 1320/1800 and only got 7 more points in Heaven. I lowered them back to 1300/1800 and got a whopping 30 points below what I had gotten previously.

Also, not sure of the rules as far as promoting non-hard forum threads. However, at http://www.reddit.com/r/gamingpc/comments/ug9yd/videocard_benchmarking_comparisons/ we're collecting various video card data just to get a better idea of what people are doing with their cards. There is a spreadsheet at the bottom of the OP with all the results and links to screenshots.
 
WC isn't really for me right now. I'm still bringing my computer back and forth between home and school. If I had the spare money I would look into it. I'd probably spend the extra and get a 7970 too.
 
Mini update:

Finally got the new rig up and running. Only testing one card so far (the one with NT-H1 TIM). ASIC quality is 90.2%, stock voltage is 933mV. At stock voltage the core is stable up to 1GHz, and unstable at 1.025GHz. I might play around with voltage a bit tomorrow.
 
Question:

If the new MSI 7950 uses the 7970 PCB, which in turn draws power from 6+8 connectors, does that mean power consumption is increased as well? (I'm sure that's good if you want to overclock, but well...)
 
Ajiki-kun said:
Question:

If the new MSI 7950 uses the 7970 PCB, which in turn draws power from 6+8 connectors, does that mean power consumption is increased as well? (I'm sure that's good if you want to overclock, but well...)
Click to expand...

Changing the amount of connections doesn't increase power draw. The extra two pins are just ground wires anyways.

Imagine you have a building. Say the rate at which people are currently entering the building is X, and at this rate one door is sufficient such that there's no line of people outside waiting to get in. If you add a second door does the rate increase? Nope, but the potential rate at which people can enter the buildling increases.
 
FaRKle0079 said:
The extra two pins are just ground wires anyways.
.
Click to expand...

The extra grounding conductors allow for higher rated power from the extra phases on the pcb. The HD7970 PCB is better built for higher over clocking but if the GPU isn't up to the job it wont happen. Water cooling seems to help all 7900 cards go faster and stabler.

I still think the TF3 PCB is very nice. The VRM PCB heat sink looks weak though, its just a small strip of metal going over the vrms with no fins and it is connected to other hot parts.
 
SonDa5 said:
The VRM PCB heat sink looks weak though, its just a small strip of metal going over the vrms with no fins and it is connected to other hot parts.
Click to expand...

Its gigantic, its much better than the vrm sinks that come with most aftermarket coolers or non-reference cards. Unlike something like a swiftech uni-sink it also always sees a ton of direct airflow. Honestly the stock cooler is more of a bottleneck when overclocking than the vrm sink, especially with crossfire.

Hell, the reference 7950 has no vrm sinks.
 
SonDa5 said:
Swiftech'c PCB heatsink for this card looks much better but I don't think it would fit with the stock TF3 cooler.

http://www.swiftech.com/HD7900-HSF.aspx
Click to expand...

Thats also not typically going to have two high speed fans directed over it in a normal configuration.

I don't see why you would want to use that on the stock TF3 cooler since the actual TF3 cooler is going to be the limit for your overclocks long before the more than adequate vrm plate.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
Thats also not typically going to have two high speed fans directed over it in a normal configuration.
Click to expand...

Not normally. A fan can be mounted to it. It won't work with the stock TF3 fan but I just wanted to share some info about it since you think the stock TF3 heat sink is better. Stock PCB TF3 heat sink has no fins on it and sticking a piece of metal on the entire PCB will generate heat throughout the entire heat sink. Without fins I don't think it works very well. May even be better off without any "heat sink" on it. A flat piece of metal without fins may not dissipate heat very well.

For improved air cooling the Accelero choice seems like the only decent option.
 
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SonDa5 said:
Not normally. A fan can be mounted to it. It won't work with the stock TF3 fan but I just wanted to share some info about it since you think the stock TF3 heat sink is better. Stock PCB TF3 heat sink has no fins on it and sticking a piece of metal on the entire PCB will generate heat throughout the entire heat sink. Without fins I don't think it works very well. May even be better off without any "heat sink" on it.

I
Click to expand...

I never said that it was better, I said that it was more than adequate for this card and cooler. The vrms have temp sensors, they don't run hot. They seem to run cooler than the gpu.

Oh and you aren't mounting a fan to the swift-tech uni-sink in crossfire. It NEEDS to be larger with larger fins. Its made to work well without as much airflow.

A flast piece of metal without fins may not dissipate heat very well.
Click to expand...

Its called a heat spreader and has been used on memory for years. Most reference coolers work the same way and work very well. Its much better than the tiny aluminum heatsinks that come on a lot of cards. The vrms have temp sensors, you can test if you want.

For improved air cooling the Accelero choice seems like the only decent option.
Click to expand...

Have you seen the tests on the accelero's vrm cooling?
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
Have you seen the tests on the accelero's vrm cooling?
Click to expand...

No I haven't but I read a few reviews for gpu core temps and it looked decent.


Most VRM temps are rated max around 120C. Besides the VRM temps I noticed the RAM on my card gets extremely hot to the touch. RAM seems to heat up hotter than anything else on my card.

I run HWinfo64 when stress testing using Furmark to see what gets hot on my card. VRM temps on my card are usually much higher than gpu temps but my GPU is water cooled.
 
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