7950's for x-fire advice

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mtdew332

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Upgrading wifes pc, and need some advice.
We've decided on two 7950's in x-fire , but i havent been following current GPU's enough to know what the best choices are.

First, her pc specs...... Intel 2500k @ 4.6ghz , 16gb DDR3, ASrock Z68 Xtreme 4 (non-gen 3)
,Seasonix x750 PSu and currently a GTX 470.

1: Im looking at the Gigabyte WF3 7950 but i'm concerned that running two cards in x-fire it may be better to go with a rear exhaust type cooler, is that a good assumption? And if so what brand 7950 would you suggest?

2: Since shes running a 2500k on a non-gen 3 mobo, to run x-fire she will be in PCI-E 2.0 @ 8x since the mobo only does 16x for a single card.
Will that bottlekneck?

3: Are all current 7950's voltage locked now? or does one brand really stand out over another if you wanna overclock?
 
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1 any 7950 will be fine. They are relatively cool
2 No bottleneck.
3 No idea, if they are custom PCB they might not be? especially the custom cooling versions
 
1: Just recently picked up 1 sapphire 7950 thats for sale for $299. Its not an overclocked model or anything but it is boost controlled.

It also has a bios switch. Bios position one didnt let me overclock well and had no voltage control.

Bios switch 2, let me able to adjust voltages up to 1.3v, GPU clocks to 1200, and Memory to 1575.

This was using the newest 12.11 Beta 8 drivers and MSI Afterburner 2.3.

With my Sapphire I was able to get 1175mhz on the GPU, and maxed out the memory at 1575mz. (also staying around 70-72c with the fan at 70%.

Not bad for a $300 basic intro 7950 model. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202006

Only $279 now with a MIR

2: No you will not be bottlenecked.

3: Some are some arent. If you really want to overclock, I know the MSI Twin frozn III come with great ASIC Quality, and SOME of them come on a 7970 PCB with a 8+6pin. I know this because I bought one for my girlfriend. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127667
 
1 - I think there isn't any 7950 with rear exhaust fan type, even the reference one isn't like that only the 7970 is.

2 - no bottleneck, I had an I7 2600k with 2 reference 7950 and now I have an I7 3770k and the performance increase is minor, like 2% max (both processors running at 4.5ghz)

3 - some are, you need to check before you buy, If I was going to buy today I would get one with silent fan, because 2 reference ones are a little bit loud, not as loud as one 7970 that I had before.
 
My Sapphire cards exhaust a bit inside my case, I have two case fans for the top to exhaust the heat works fine. Just orient the case fans inside well & it should be fine
 
risqu3 said:
1 any 7950 will be fine. They are relatively cool
2 No bottleneck.
3 No idea, if they are custom PCB they might not be? especially the custom cooling versions
Click to expand...

+1 to this, I have used the blower style cards (7970 Reference) and custom cooling solutions and for xfire I prefer the rear blower style
 
Draconian said:
+1 to this, I have used the blower style cards (7970 Reference) and custom cooling solutions and for xfire I prefer the rear blower style
Click to expand...

+2 to this, count me in. lol But I think one 7950 is fine just oc it a little if need be.
 
I also prefer the blower style cards. but be careful, I picked up 2 of these when they first launched assuming it was a decent blower style heatsink and it sucks. The heatsink is only as big as the fan. Wish I could have waited for the Twin Frozr model to come out.
 
Those reference coolers really, really suck. The actual reference 7950 cooler is almost as bad as the reference GTX670 cooler.
 
DASHlT said:
1: Just recently picked up 1 sapphire 7950 thats for sale for $299. Its not an overclocked model or anything but it is boost controlled.

It also has a bios switch. Bios position one didnt let me overclock well and had no voltage control.

Bios switch 2, let me able to adjust voltages up to 1.3v, GPU clocks to 1200, and Memory to 1575.

This was using the newest 12.11 Beta 8 drivers and MSI Afterburner 2.3.

With my Sapphire I was able to get 1175mhz on the GPU, and maxed out the memory at 1575mz. (also staying around 70-72c with the fan at 70%.

Not bad for a $300 basic intro 7950 model. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202006

Only $279 now with a MIR

2: No you will not be bottlenecked.

3: Some are some arent. If you really want to overclock, I know the MSI Twin frozn III come with great ASIC Quality, and SOME of them come on a 7970 PCB with a 8+6pin. I know this because I bought one for my girlfriend. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127667
Click to expand...
Ended up buying two of those Sapphires.
Tested both individually up to 1200/1450. (didn't try higher)
Put them in x-fire at a conservative 1125/1375 and performance is great.
I didn't see any reason to really push the memory since it didn't seem to make that much of a difference in performance when testing, and i have no idea how to tell when ECC on the memory kicks in and hurts performance, so i just decided to stay conservative.

And yes my wife is great, she loves First Person Shooters, and RPGs.
But she doesn't pick her hardware, since that part doesn't interest her, so she just lets me build/upgrade her pc's.
Which is great for me, since i can see how hardware other than my own performs.

I didn't go with rear exhaust/blower style cards because they tend to be noisier under load and she wanted it quiet as possible.
 
BababooeyHTJ said:
Those reference coolers really, really suck. The actual reference 7950 cooler is almost as bad as the reference GTX670 cooler.
Click to expand...

Funny - every time I've had a non reference cooler, my card temps and case temps were always higher (much higher)

The reference blower style may be loud - but does the best job of getting the heat outside and away from all critical components.

The custom cooling solutions might be pretty and all that but I refuse to dump 500W of heat into my case. (dual 7970's here)
 
collegeboy69us said:
Funny - every time I've had a non reference cooler, my card temps and case temps were always higher (much higher)

The reference blower style may be loud - but does the best job of getting the heat outside and away from all critical components.

The custom cooling solutions might be pretty and all that but I refuse to dump 500W of heat into my case. (dual 7970's here)
Click to expand...

The 7970 reference cooler isn't the same as the 7950 reference cooler. You're comparing apples to oranges. If you have a case with decent airflow non-exhaust coolers shouldn't be a big deal.
 
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